For the first time, medical scientists can quickly and precisely measure blood vessel properties to quantify the effects of various agents, such as new drugs, on capillary growth. Preventing new capillaries from forming in abnormal tissue by shutting off a tumor's blood supply (angiogenesis) is a promising approach to fighting cancer.
The patent-pending RPI-Trace3D system was developed by a team led by Badri Roysam, director of the Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (CenSISS) at Rensselaer.
Sophisticated microscopes connected to computers can now generate complex 3-D images to allow scientists to peer deeper inside live tumors. Until recently, such intricate images took days to quantify because scientists had to manually trace the vessels. Typically, the results were less than perfect. The RPI-Trace3D system incorporated into the electronic microscopes identifies and traces all the capillaries of a living tumor in less than two minutes.
The system will significantly improve the search for better cancer-fighting drugs, says Harvard Medical School's Edward Brown, a researcher in the school's Department of Radiation Oncology. Brown is using the mapping system in collaboration with Northeastern University and other schools.
"The Rensselaer research team has generated truly impressive algorithms that trace out all the vessels in a 3-D network, as well as identify a number of properties of the vessels. This allows us to quantify these vessels accurately for the first time," Brown says.
Rensselaer graduate student Muhammad-Amri
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Contact: Jodi Ackerman
ackerj2@rpi.edu
518-276-2146
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
5-Dec-2002