NCT/UCC Dresden receives $2.2 million for tumor imaging

03 Sep 2024

Support from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will improve SWIR imaging in deeper tissue layers.

An international project group from the National Center for Tumor Diseases Dresden (NCT/UCC Dresden), UCLA and Imperial College London has received new funding for work on tumor imaging.

The $2.2 million award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative continues its support for the researchers' work on the use of short-wave infra-red (SWIR) imaging in the diagnosis and treatment of cancers.

Several imaging techniques currently used in biological research cannot penetrate into deeper tissue layers, commented the Dresden team about the award, so in cancer treatment remnants of tumors or individual cancer cells at tumor margins and in lymph nodes are not visible.

Doctors performing surgery are therefore repeatedly faced with the difficult question of whether all of the affected tissue has actually been removed.

SWIR has been recognized as a possible solution to this for some time. In 2023 a team at University College London used SWIR as an improved way to identify tumors, exploiting the diminished interference from autofluorescence of biological tissues at those wavelengths.

At the time UCL noted that a lack of clinically approved SWIR fluorophore dyes was a barrier to clinical translation of SWIR techniques, but the decreased cost of InGaAs sensors used in the imaging of these wavelengths had stimulated development of devices suitable for deployment.

The Dresden project is investigating the lower scattering experienced by SWIR photons as they travel through tissues, allowing those photons to penetrate deeper and ultimately lead to improved visualization of tissue structures. In 2023 Oliver Bruns and Dresden colleagues used SWIR to fluorescence-image peripheral organs in awake and freely moving mice, intending it as a step towards functional neuroimaging of living animals.

Improved radiation assessment through optical imaging

"In cancer research in particular, the unprecedented sensitivity of imaging using short-wave infrared light, fluorescent dyes and state-of-the-art cameras may enable us to make even just a few cancer cells clearly visible," commented Bruns from NCT/UCC Dresden's Department of Functional Imaging in Surgical Oncology about the new funding.

"Our goal is to precisely detect and remove even the smallest tumor remnants in the future."

The research team will use the new funding to carry out further fundamental studies and utilize novel physical effects in order to identify the optimal conditions for short-wave infrared imaging. To this end, they are working on the design of special Raman probes and a "visionary microscope that will overcome the limitations of previous microscopy techniques."

These innovative technologies could be used in various areas of biological research and medical diagnostics and, for the first time, enable the non-invasive microscopic examination of deeper tissue layers, according to the researchers.

This approach should bring other related advantages too, including the prospect of radiologists being able to better calculate the target volume of radiation during treatments and so lower the risk of incorrect dosage.

"To date the basis for this radiation assessment has been conventional imaging techniques such as MRI," commented the project. "We were not able to detect tumor spread in this way. This scientific approach is therefore an essential step towards improved therapy."