Cryoimaging Technique Identifies, Locates Individual Cancer Cells

A biomedical engineering researchers, dissatisfied with blurry, low-sensitivity optical images of diseased tissues, developed a system that can identify a single cancer cell in preclinical imaging studies. Moreover, he can pinpoint precisely where the cell is located in a three-dimensional (3D) image.

Called cryoimaging, the system enables Dr. Dave Wilson, a professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH, USA) and collaborators to identify single molecules, count the number of cells in an organ, compare a normal heart to an abnormal heart, and more. The remarkably detailed images can show the effectiveness of different drug therapies, gene therapies, and cellular therapies in preclinical testing, according to Dr. Wilson.

The cryoimaging system literally disassembles real tissue layer by layer then reassembles the details into a computer model. "You can't meet this resolution from outside the body,” Dr. Wilson said. In a study published in the August 2009 issue of the journal Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Wilson, and coauthors describe cryoimaging and the extensive software they wrote to enable them to zero in on single cells. The images are in color, which provides more detail than the gray scale used in other devices, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Dr. Wilson noted.

In this specific model, the software assembled images of the internal organs, showing the location of individual metastatic cancer cells in the adrenal gland. If one is only interested in the central nervous system, the vascular system or something less than a complete specimen, the imager has the capability of giving you exactly what you want, Wilson said. As the computer assembles the images, it sends text message updates to researchers.

Dr. James Basilion, an associate professor of radiology and biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve, did not work on Dr. Wilson's imager but has seen the results. "This device provides superb resolution and sensitivity to identify fluorogenic compounds or cells virtually anywhere within a specimen,” Dr. Basilion said. "No longer do we need to ‘guess' which cells are taking up agents from radiological biodistribution studies. We now can visualize them.”

Dr. Wilson launched his research with a Third Frontier grant from the state of Ohio. As he made progress, he was funded with approximately US$1.5 million in grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD, USA). He has founded a start-up company, called BioInVision, Inc. (Mayfield Village, OH, USA), to commercialize the imaging system.

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