The role of the Cellular Imaging and Molecular Pathology Core is to support investigators in the ProgramProject Grant by providing a set of dedicated molecular biological and state-of-the-art in vivo molecularimaging analyses. Together these comprise the necessary tools for effective assessment of disease states,the molecular basis of response to therapy both in patients and in animal models and the analysis of the invivo fate of cellular populations. The services provided by this Core are those that extend beyond routinepreclinical studies and standard clinical care. This Core provides molecular testing for projects that monitortreatment outcomes, detect early disease recurrence and minimal disease states. Rapid and quantitativeassessment of experimental therapies is necessary for accelerated and accurate analyses of potentialefficacy. We have developed molecular imaging tools for such analyses in living animal models and thesewill be used to study and optimize the therapies proposed in this program. An established Small AnimalImaging Core Resource at Stanford provides the instrumentation and expertise for these investigations andwill continue to refine the methods for specific programmatic applications and move toward clinical imagingstrategies. In vivo molecular imaging will be used to direct the ex vivo assays for more meaningfulcomprehensive analyses. In vivo imaging strategies utilizing novel bioluminescent markers which allow forthe quantitative, noninvasive detection of disease burden and tracking of cellular populations will be used inProjects 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8. Molecular testing for disease specific chromosomal translocations or transcriptionproducts will be performed for Projects 1, 2 and 8 on leukemia and lymphoma specimens. Quantitativeassessment of minimal residual disease will be performed using TaqMan chemistry for a robust assessmentof disease response and potential recurrence on clinical specimens. The centralized performance of themolecular procedures by this Core will avoid duplication of efforts in the program and ensure timely, efficientand consistently high quality results. This combination of in vivo and ex vivo analyses strengthens thestudies by providing more data and directed evaluation of clinical and preclinical specimens in a centralizedcore.
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