Imaging plays a critical role in the diagnosis, staging, and in the assessment of therapeutic response in cancer. Imaging is of course a broad discipline encompassing a variety of rather different modalities (X-ray, MRI, PET) and analysis techniques. Principles from the fields of physics and mathematics can be applied to the analysis and interpretation of current imaging techniques as well to development of novel imaging techniques. A key issue for the field is the extent to which different methods can be used synergistically to gain additional information. Another key issue is improving the usefulness of specialized contrast agents to get around existing limitations in signal to noise and/or spatial resolution. To address the aforementioned challenges, the organizers will convene a two-day focused workshop to be held in the Boston area. The two-day highly focused meeting will have a full agenda of topics at the intersection of physics and mathematics and cancer imaging. The meeting will be oriented around a high level of interactions between participants, focusing on problems where fundamental physical and mathematical principles and advanced imaging can be leveraged to make progress towards cancer diagnosis and treatment. Most of each session will be devoted to active discussion within a small group of invitees, who span both the physics and engineering of advanced imaging and biologists and clinicians at the forefront of cancer biology and treatment. This will be the first informal workshop that tries to create an integrated picture of what can be accomplished via noninvasive methods in human patients. It is expected that the white paper generated as part of the meeting follow-up will have a very large impact on the direction of scientific research in this essential area. Bringing together experts from different parts of this field can be expected to lead to new directions and ultimately better imaging "products" for the practicing oncologist. At a more basic science level, it is expected that the ideas generated may be useful for other applications of imaging in biology and biomedicine. To facilitate the spread of ideas generated by this meeting to the rest of the community, synopses of various talks as well as an overall summary will be posted at www.martinos.org/martinos/poahi/ and linked to the community Physics of Cancer website: http://physicsandcancer.org/
