Скачать или смотреть Project 89: Imaging Tumoroids to Test the Sensitivity to Hypoxia in Cancer

Hypoxia is found in many tumours and is emerging as a useful indicator of tumour grade and a biomarker for poor response to radiotherapy. The clinical challenge is to determine the oxygenation levels inside tumours non-invasively. MRI susceptibility mapping uses MRI phase images to calculate the local tissue magnetic susceptibility. The susceptibility of blood changes dramatically depending on its oxygenation making MRI susceptibility mapping an ideal candidate to reveal oxygenation in vivo. Work is underway to optimise MRI susceptibility mapping for tumours in vivo. However, there is no non-invasive way to validate this technique and test how sensitive it is to the very low oxygen levels commonly found in tumours.
The aim of this project is to design tumoroids – realistic 3D cellular models of tumours – with oxygen gradients mimicking those in real tumours and to image them to test the sensitivity of MRI susceptibility mapping to these low oxygenation levels. Oxygenation levels calculated from MRI susceptibility maps of tumoroids will be compared with oxygen levels measured independently using gold-standard fibre-optic oxygen probes in the same tumoroids.
This challenging project will involve design and fabrication of 3D tumoroids in vitro with realistic oxygenation gradients as well as optimising high-resolution MRI acquisition and susceptibility mapping techniques for tumoroids and performing calibrated fibre-optic oxygenation measurements.

The University College London EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Medical Imaging