Imaging Life with Light and Sound: State-of-the-art Photoacoustic Imaging For Mechanistic Understanding Of Human Disease

Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) involves shining a particular type of light into the body and then detecting sound waves coming out of the body. This can provide pictures showing the structure of organs, how they are working, and what certain molecules are doing in the body. PAI is safe and can look relatively deep into the body. It is important to be able to study how organs work in the body, what is happening in disease, in a living subject, rather than "in a dish" which does not reflect so well what happens in the body.

We will use the most advanced PAI system commercially available to study heart, cardiovascular and brain disease and cancer in experimental models. PAI can be used to study organs such as the heart and the brain in living subjects, to see if organs are working properly, e,g., is the heart beating properly, is a blood vessel blocked, is blood flowing properly in the brain, is enough oxygen being delivered to the brain, etc. We can also use PAI to see if there is disease anywhere in the body, e,g., cancer. PAI can be used to see particular molecules that are changed when there is disease, e.g., the abnormal protein clumps in the brain in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease. Sometimes molecules have to be tagged to be seen by PAI, and in this project, we will invent new tags/probes to see molecules we think are involved in causing disease. Disease can also be caused by certain cells not working properly and we can also tag these cells so that we can use PAI to see where they are and what they are doing. Sometimes drugs are delivered by specially made tiny particles or even in safe virus particles, and these can also be tagged so that we can see where drugs are being delivered by PAI.

Using PAI we will get detailed pictures of what happens during human disease so that we can identify harmful molecules or cells that are important in causing disease and develop new drugs that will target these molecules and cells.

Photoacoustic (or optoacoustic) imaging (PAI) is an increasingly fast-growing biomedical, truly fused imaging modality that generates images from laser-induced ultrasound signals and provides the most complete in-depth anatomical, functional and molecular imaging data. In this project, we propose to use the latest product of FUJIFILM VisualSonics, i.e., Vevo F2 LAZR-X for PAI, which combines ultra-high frequency functional ultrasound and optical imaging into one platform, to merge the high-resolution capability of optical imaging and its high multi-spectral nature, with the ability to image relatively deep in living organisms with ultrasound. This state-of-the-art multi-modal, non-invasive, non-ionising, high-resolution bio-imaging platform will be used as a broad multi-user equipment for preclinical imaging across Schools and Faculties at KCL.

The instrument is relatively low-cost and user-friendly compared to other imaging modalities, e.g. MRI or PET/SPECT, and comes integrated with a full physiological system for in vivo experimentation, and hence is far superior to alternative preclinical imaging technologies. The additional benefits of this particular PAI platform include: (i) the most efficient and developed hybrid of optics and ultrasound, (ii) the most advanced functional analysis of combined data, (iii) a resolution down to 30 micrometres, (iv) new laser technology for faster and more sensitive image acquisition, and (v) application-specific laser. By employing this state-of-the-art Vevo F2 LAZR-X PAI tool for our research, it will enable the most comprehensive and complete understanding (and bespoke data analysis) of the mechanisms underlying disease pathogenesis and progression, identify new biomarkers for early disease diagnosis and provide novel healthcare solutions for clinical use.