True multi-modality optical molecular imaging – where both modalities interact and work in harmony.
Abstract
The main goal of the molecular imaging community has been achieving higher resolution and better quantitative accuracy.
For nearly two decades, I have been spending effort for the same purpose, mainly integrating optical imaging with anatomic
imaging modalities such as MRI and X-ray CT. For example, my team has developed a gantry-based combined X-ray CT and
Fluorescence Tomography system for small animal imaging. This system is unique in that both X-ray CT and optical imaging
systems are on the same gantry rotating around the animal and capable of revealing cross-sectional background optical
absorption map and anatomic images that can be used to obtain quantitatively correct fluorophore concentration maps.
Another hybrid system that is being developed in my lab is a combined MRI-Diffuse Optical Tomography scanner for small
animal imaging in both absorbance & fluorescence modes.
In all of these applications, optical and anatomic imaging modalities worked in harmony but independent from each other.
Recently, we have focused on development of novel multimodality techniques, in which optical and anatomic imaging
modalities work in harmony and interact with each other to provide images that cannot be obtained solely with one or the
other. This talk will highlight two of these true-multimodality imaging techniques developed in our lab: Photo-magnetic
Imaging (PMI) and Temperature Modulated Fluorescence Tomography (TM-FT), where optical tomography is achieved at MRI
and Focused Ultrasound resolution, respectively while preserving its superior sensitivity.
Biography
Dr. Gulsen is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Radiological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Physics & Astronomy, and Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. He has been serving as the Director of In vivo Functional Onco-Imaging Shared Resource of the UCI Cancer Center for more than15 years. His research involves development of both cutting-edge instrumentation and novel mathematical algorithms for multi-modality imaging techniques. Although most of those techniques have been related to optical molecular tomography, his team was also involved in development of the the world’s first MR compatible SPECT small animal imaging and Positron Emission
Mammography systems.
