3D Biophotonic Imaging for Drug Discovery

By using the first 3D biophotonic imaging system, scientists can now retrieve higher quality data earlier in the drug discovery and development process.

The new IVIS 3D Imaging System, developed by Xenogen Corp. (Alameda, CA, USA), can help accelerate drug discovery and development, and considerably reduce the cost and time to market for new therapies. Researchers can now see biologic processes in living animals on a molecular and cellular level, in three dimensions (3D) and in real time. This enables them to more effectively monitor drugs and diseases throughout the entire system. Several top medical institutions are already seeing the benefits. Assessment units of the systems have been installed at several medical institutions, including the Children's Hospital Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA, USA), and the Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, Canada). The IVIS 3D imaging system was recently displayed at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Society for Molecular Imaging (SMI) in Cologne, Germany.

"Xenogen's new three-dimensional system enables us to see what's happening to cells inside a mouse, from multiple views and in real time,” said Mark Henkelman, professor, departments of medical biophysics and medical imaging, and director, Mouse Imaging Center, Hospital for Sick Children. "It is an extremely sensitive camera, and it's now the only way to get data on patterns of emitted light in animals, data that we didn't have before. This technology will help us understand gene expression in mice and thus, better predict gene expression in humans.

This non-invasive imaging system enables scientists to better visualize, monitor and understand biologic processes in living animals, in real time. The technology incorporates luciferase, the enzyme that makes fireflies and some bacteria glow, into living animals. Illuminating biologic mechanisms enables real-time visual exploration and study of gene expression, cellular pathways, drug/target interactions and the mechanism of action of drugs.

The 3D imaging system provides a full 3D diffuse tomographic analysis of bioluminescent light sources in living animals as well as 2D multi-view fluorescent imaging capabilities. The system gathers and processes numerous views/orientations captured around the mouse to provide researchers with better spatial representations of the light sources (e.g., cancer metastases, inflammatory markers). It is designed to enable scientists to more effectively pinpoint where and when a drug candidate has an effect on or is affected by a normal or disease process. The detailed surface tomography measurements provided by the technology are suitable for co-registering with other modalities such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

"Leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies use our technology to accelerate pre-clinical drug development, and we believe biophotonic imaging technology is quickly becoming a research standard,” said Pamela R. Contag, Ph.D., president, Xenogen. "As leaders in biophotonic imaging technology, we believe the three-dimensional attributes of our newest and most sophisticated biophotonic imaging system significantly advance the
field.”




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