UCSF nabs $5M grant to develop new MRI technology
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has been awarded a $5.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to advance a new method of using MRI technology to create more detailed scans of prostate tumors and other diseased tissue.
The technology was originally invented by GE Healthcare and has been further developed through a partnership between GE and UCSF at the university’s Mission Bay campus.
The approach was first tested in a small pilot study completed this year to gauge the aggressiveness of tumors in men with untreated prostate cancer. The technique, which uses a new instrument to boost the MRI’s signal more than 50,000 times, may help doctors differentiate between the rare, fast-growing tumors that may pose a real threat and the majority of slow-moving cancers unlikely to cause real harm.
The research focuses on pyruvate, a form of glucose, which researchers inject into a cancer patient inside an MRI. Real-time measurements of how quickly the pyruvate is metabolized by tumor cells are then collected. The measurements correlate with cancer presence and aggressiveness.
Changes in enzyme activity can be seen in seconds and produce meaningful data within a minute, Daniel B. Vigneron, PhD, director of the technology center, said in a statment. The technique also can be used to determine whether a tumor is responding to therapy.
The grant will support research efforts led by Vigneron and two colleagues: John Kurhanewicz, the lead investigator in the prostate cancer study, and Sarah Nelson, director of the Surbeck Laboratory of Advanced Imaging, where the new center is housed. All are members of the department of radiology & biomedical imaging and UCSF’s California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences.
UCSF researchers will train scientists from other institutions in the techniques they develop as part of the grant. Additional research conducted by other UCSF scientists will investigate ways of applying these insights to other cancers, liver disease and diabetes.
The technology was originally invented by GE Healthcare and has been further developed through a partnership between GE and UCSF at the university’s Mission Bay campus.
The approach was first tested in a small pilot study completed this year to gauge the aggressiveness of tumors in men with untreated prostate cancer. The technique, which uses a new instrument to boost the MRI’s signal more than 50,000 times, may help doctors differentiate between the rare, fast-growing tumors that may pose a real threat and the majority of slow-moving cancers unlikely to cause real harm.
The research focuses on pyruvate, a form of glucose, which researchers inject into a cancer patient inside an MRI. Real-time measurements of how quickly the pyruvate is metabolized by tumor cells are then collected. The measurements correlate with cancer presence and aggressiveness.
Changes in enzyme activity can be seen in seconds and produce meaningful data within a minute, Daniel B. Vigneron, PhD, director of the technology center, said in a statment. The technique also can be used to determine whether a tumor is responding to therapy.
The grant will support research efforts led by Vigneron and two colleagues: John Kurhanewicz, the lead investigator in the prostate cancer study, and Sarah Nelson, director of the Surbeck Laboratory of Advanced Imaging, where the new center is housed. All are members of the department of radiology & biomedical imaging and UCSF’s California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences.
UCSF researchers will train scientists from other institutions in the techniques they develop as part of the grant. Additional research conducted by other UCSF scientists will investigate ways of applying these insights to other cancers, liver disease and diabetes.
Evan Godt, Writer
Evan joined TriMed in 2011, writing primarily for Health Imaging. Prior to diving into medical journalism, Evan worked for the Nine Network of Public Media in St. Louis. He also has worked in public relations and education. Evan studied journalism at the University of Missouri, with an emphasis on broadcast media.