The three-year research collaboration will be funded by AstraZeneca and focus on the development of cutting-edge real-time fluorescence and confocal imaging techniques
Cancer Research Technology (CRT), the oncology-focused development and commercialisation company and the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, Glasgow have announced a new research collaboration with AstraZeneca to develop optical imaging techniques for use in cancer research.
Studies based at the Beatson Institute and led by Cancer Research UK-funded scientists there will develop non-invasive imaging technologies for studying tumour progression, including the investigation of tumour development, invasion and metastasis.
The work will form part of a wider initiative by the Beatson Institute to develop imaging as a key technology underpinning its basic cancer research programme.
The collaboration will initially involve the development and validation of fluorescent probes and reporters for deep tissue imaging of specific biological targets.
These will be further developed for the detection of tumour cells, identification of apoptosis or assessment of blood flow.
Ultimately, the studies aim to investigate the mechanism of tumour invasion and assess the effect of therapeutic or molecular intervention.
In addition, methods and software packages for quantifying image data will be explored.
The development of techniques for tumour imaging in real-time is likely to generate important new information relating to the effects of interventions, thereby accelerating drug development.
