Research / Clinical Summary

David Hall, PhD Assistant Adjunct Professor, Radiology Tumor Growth, Invasion & Metastasis Program Contact by Email

Dr. Hall is interested in optical imaging, an emerging modality that offers a high sensitivity, non-invasive and non-ionizing imaging approach to interrogate tissue in vivo. Intrinsic optical imaging techniques rely on the differential absorption of near infrared (NIR) light by chromophores, such as oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin, to offer a source of image contrast.

NIR photons are used since tissue absorption is minimized at that wavelength permitting deep tissue probing. Such systems detected hypoxic tissue and differences in fat and water content and are being tested for the detection of breast cancer in clinical trials. However, as is common with any imaging technique, contrast agents have emerged that improve detection and characterization of tissue of interest such as cancer.

Optical agents use fluorophores that are excited and emit at specific optical wavelengths to generate an image. The development of molecular probes that can be targeted or trapped in tissues or activated by enzymes, has positioned optical imaging in competition with PET as the dominant molecular imaging technique. During the long history of PET imaging, techniques have been developed, optimized and validated for quantification and kinetic modeling in order to extract physiologic indices such as receptor concentration.

Similarly, there is a great need to accomplish the same goal with optical molecular imaging. Specifically, research is being conducted with time domain optical methods where the fluorophore lifetime can be measured in addition to the fluorescent intensity to provide additional information.

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