This Shared Instrumentation Grant application requests support in purchase of a state of the art digital cardiovascular X-Ray imaging system to replace an existing core research resource unit that is seventeen years old, in need of frequent repair and no longer meets the needs of numerous institutional researchers. The equipment requested consists of a high frequency, 100 KW, single plane, C-Arm mounted X- Ray imaging system that provides high resolution, high magnification digital images at multiple field of view sizes and image acquisition rates consistent with peripheral vascular, neural and cardiac research applications. The system will provide researchers with imaging capabilities consistent with current state of the art clinical systems used for both diagnostic and image guided therapy applications. The system will support, enhance and extend basic and applied research involving twelve investigators with NIH funded research projects that require high resolution digital imaging for vascular catheterization and vascular device employment in animal models, for superselective placement of catheters, electrodes and devices to evaluate organ structure and function, delivery of therapeutic agents and developing new applications of gene and drug therapy. NIH funded projects that demonstrate a need for the equipment to enhance or extend current and future research include four projects that require high resolution cine frame rate digital X-Ray imaging for cardiac catheterization in creating animal models to evaluate MRI indicators of myocardial function, perfusion and ischemia, tissue viability, stress maps of contractility and deformations, electromechanical properties, and in evaluating novel intravascular imaging probes to help guide interventional therapies. Several SCORE grant projects utilize animal models of heart failure which require digital cardiac X-Ray imaging for catheterization procedures, endomyocardial biopsies, LV function studies, superselective intra-coronary artery delivery of gene transfer vectors, and quantitative analysis of heart function using cardiac imaging parameters. Two projects focus on imaging vasculature in rodent tumors and cerebral ischemia models. Additional NIH grant supported work requires digital X-Ray imaging in evaluating a new CCD fluoroscopic system, superselective intravascular delivery of imaging agents in animal models of neurotoxicity, a NIH- Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to evaluate stabilizing agents for intravascular coronary stents, and two NHLBI Research Training Grants.
