Center for Advanced Biomedical Imaging Research
Director: Juri G. Gelovani, M.D., Ph.D.
is a unique program that, when its new facility opens, will bring together the expertise researchers from GE, U.T. Health Science Center at Houston and M. D. Anderson to create new ways of diagnosing cancer and cardiac disease and selecting appropriate therapy. The scientists will utilize sophisticated probes to seek out cancer cells with specific molecular abnormalities and image them with advanced technologies to enable physicians to select appropriate treatments and determine the effectiveness of cancer therapy within hours or days (instead of many months).
Better Detection of Cancer and Heart Disease
Current imaging processes can identify diseased organs, but often not until the disease is advanced and harder to treat. Likewise, because small changes that reflect early response to therapy cannot be easily distinguished, it can be difficult to rapidly determine whether a treatment is effective or needs to be changed.
The center's researchers and physicians will overcome these problems by developing and applying new, more sensitive molecular imaging agents for positron-emission tomography (PET), contrast computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques.
GE Healthcare will contribute sophisticated technology and instrumentation, including a cyclotron to produce radionuclides. Scientists will use probes to seek out cancer cells with specific molecular abnormalities and image them with PET scanning and other technologies.
Rapid Measurement of Treatment Effectiveness
Advances in imaging allow physicians to select appropriate treatments and determine within hours or days (instead of many months) the effectiveness of cancer therapy.
For instance, gefitinib (Iressa®), a new drug for treatment of several cancers, acts by blocking a molecule overactive in some but not all cancer patients. Only those patients with the overactive molecule will respond to gefitinib. Imaging agents created by Juri Gelovani, M.D., Ph.D., home in on the overactive molecule and so can identify patients most likely to benefit from gefitinib. Using such labeled molecules, it is also possible to determine whether a drug has reached and interacted with the molecule it blocks and to accurately estimate the correct drug dose for each patient, a trial-and-error process until now.
Collaboration
This collaborative project includes support from the Texas Enterprise Fund, GE Healthcare, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the UT System, as well as M. D. Anderson.
2008 Update
Dr. Yuri Gelovani, director of the Center for Advanced Biomedical Imaging Research, reported that ground was broken for the 238,000-square-foot research building on April 10, 2007. When it opens in 2009, the building will be the nation’s largest academic facility for the research and production of imaging agents. Already, the imaging research team is collaborating with the Kleberg Center, the Center for Targeted Therapy, and the Center for Cancer Immunology Research to make significant advances. About 25 imaging agents are in the research and development pipeline, and six Phase I clinical trials that use a variety of imaging techniques and technologies are slated for the next two years.