Novel technique for fluorescence tomography of tumors in livi...( Fluorescent molecules i.e. substanc...)

Fluorescent molecules i.e. substances which can be stimulated to emit light are extremely valuable tools in biological research and medical diagnosis. Fluorescence can be used for instance to analyze the regulation and expression of genes, to locate proteins in cells and tissues, to follow metabolic pathways and to study the location and migration of cells. Of particular importance is the combination of fluorescence imaging with novel techniques that allow tomographic three-dimensional visualization of objects in living organisms. At the Helmholtz Zentrum Mnchen German Research Center for Environmental Health together with the Technische Universitt Mnchen an own institute is concerned with the development and refinement of such new technologies: the Institute for Biological and Medical Imaging headed by Professor Vasilis Ntziachristos.

The quality of optical imaging in tissues is naturally limited, since beyond a penetration depth of a few hundred micrometers the photons are massively scattered due to interactions with cell membranes and organelles which results in blurred images. In the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Prof. Ntziachristos and his team, together with colleagues from the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA, report on the use of the so-called early arriving photons together with tomographic principles. Early photons are the first photons that arrive onto a photon detector after illumination of tissue by an ultra-short photon pulse and undergo less scattering in comparison to photons arriving at later times. Compared to continuous illumination measurements a combination of these less scattered photons with 360-degree illumination-detection resulted in sharper and more accurate images of mice under investigation.

With this technique, called ,Early Photon Tomography' (EPT), the scientists imaged lung tumors in living mice. For this purpose
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