SSI imaging center starts to come into focus
The first component of the Institute’s Imaging programs will open later this fall, bringing focus to Director Arun Sanyal’s vision of hepatology “looking at the body through the lens of the liver.”
The imaging programs will be capable of imaging multiple organs simultaneously as well as visualizing physiological processes not previously possible, including metabolism, inflammation and fibrosis. “We will be looking at the whole human body through the lens of the liver,” Sanyal said.
Imaging the “crosstalk” that occurs among the human body’s major organs (liver, brain and heart) “will enable us to answer new questions with unprecedented power,” Sanyal said. “We will use the imaging core not only to understand what’s happening with the liver, but with the other organs as well.”
Marrying pre-clinical imaging and radiochemistry capabilities will allow the Institute to facilitate translational science and for “one-stop shopping” for VCU researchers and industry partners, the director added. For example, pharmaceutical companies could hire the SSI and its imaging core and staff in their effort to develop new therapies for liver disease.
Following this summer’s demolition and construction work, the pre-clinical radiochemistry lab should start operations as soon as November. It will manufacture radiotracers for metabolism and could undertake projects for sponsors in the pharmaceutical industry, according to Atilio Anzellotti, Ph.D., the Institute’s director of radiochemistry research. The building will house a radiochemistry lab and necropsy rooms for pre-clinical research.
A collaboration between the Institute’s chief scientific officer, Saul Karpen, M.D., Ph.D., and the Swedish firm Antaros Medical is set as the first project for the pre-clinical program: imaging fibrosis in vivo. The effort is part of the institute’s ongoing effort to find more accurate biomarkers to evaluate liver damage and its phases.
“Imaging using radiotracers is a fantastic non-invasive biomarker that we hope to aid clinicians in diagnosing patients in the clinical setting. Decreasing the need of more traditional interventions such as performing biopsies, using non-invasive biomarkers will alleviate some of the burden and potential risks associated with invasive interventions, leading to safer outcomes for patients” said Danny Mallory, project manager for the imaging center.
Just blocks from the pre-clinical research lab, a 7,200 square-foot clinical imaging center is on track to open early next summer as part the Institute’s translational science efforts from pre-clinical to clinical research. At a cost of more than $13 million, the Institute will receive a Siemens 3T MRI scanner, “MAGNETOM Vida”, a Siemens PET/CT known as the “Biograph Vision Quadra”, as well as hot boxes for remote radiotracer manufacturing from the Italian company TEMA Sinergie.
The PET/CT machine can scan the entire human body in 1 minute, and will be used exclusively for research, not only by the Institute but by VCU-affiliated colleagues. “Our center will act as a resource for the entire VCU research community, not just the liver institute,” Mallory said.