PHOTOSOUND TECHNOLOGIES, INC. — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: 102

Description

SUMMARY Metastases of tumors are associated with more thanof cancer deathsDespite years of therapeutic developmentmortality has improved only incrementally by few months at bestThe preclinical development phase for modern metastatics currently misses critical quantitative information on metastatic progressionMulti point in vivo observation of early metastasis and quantitative assessment of its development would enable unprecedented precision of longitudinal controlPhotoSound TechnologiesIncproposes a novel platform for in vivo molecular imaging that addresses the critical barrier in quantitative preclinical imaging of metastasis via contrasted dual modalityD imaging approachThe proposed project promises to enable in vivo quantification of numbers and volumes of early metastatic tumorswhich is critical for preclinical development of future anti metastaticsThe platform integrates aD photoacoustic tomography into a multi modality imaging platform with a coregisteredD fluorescence unitPAFTand a switchable optical nanoprobe targeted to the studied metastatic cellsThe nanoprobe has capability to activate optical and fluorescence contrasts upon external illumination with safe levels of pulsed laser radiationand it was designed to maximize benefits of dual modality PAFT imagingThe fluorescence imaging component of PAFT is used to boost detection sensitivity by providing low resolution spatial constraint for the distribution of activated nanoprobeswhich are then precisely mapped inD by photoacoustic imaging componentThe ultimate objective is to maintain the molecular sensitivity of state of the art fluorescence techniqueswhile boosting spatial resolution of the detected metastasisfoldCurrent trends on $B market of in vivo small animal imaging favor commercial introduction of the proposed multi modal imaging platformwhich is designed for table top application and has aD anatomical reference component implemented through a photoacoustic unitPAFT could be also used as a universal instrument forD functional imaging of volumetric blood content and oxygenation without a need for any contrast agentimaging of various NIR absorbing probes and bioluminescent cellsSuch versatility would be attractive for Animal Research Facilities engaged in a broad spectrum of fundamental and preclinical imaging studiesPhase I project will demonstrate feasibility for the PAFT nanoprobe imaging platform to detect and quantify early metastasis in a preclinical murine modelThe focus of Phase II will be the development of a commercial imaging platform that is optimized to monitor the in vivo effects of anti metastatic therapiesWhen our system is benchmarked against the current standards of optical imagingwe expect to find ax increase in spatial resolution enabling detection of metastases separated by onlymmas well as quantitative assessment of individual tumor volumes More thanof cancer deaths occur after the initiation of metastasis prioritizing the development of new anti metastatic therapiesSmall animal models of human cancer represent the golden standard and the first step in preclinical development phase of all promising anti metastaticsHigh throughput screening of such models requires non invasive imaging techniqueswhich are currently incapable of detectionquantificationand monitoring response of early metastatic lesionsThis project proposes development of a novel small animal imaging platform integrating photoacoustic tomography and fluorescence in a single compact instrumentenabling high resolutionD rendering and anatomical registration of metastatic lesionsAdequate sensitivity and specificity is provided by an optically switchable dual contrast nanoprobe with cancer specific molecular targetingThe developed technology will be commercially available for preclinical and research applications in the area of cancer