About
Assistant Professor
Department of Neurosurgery
UCLA
Project title: Visualization, Quantitation, and Targeting of Infiltrating Glioblastoma Cells with pH Sensitive Amine Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Mentors:
Harley Kornblum, MD PhD – UCLA
Benjamin Ellingson, PhD – UCLA
Multidisciplinary expertise:
Cancer biology, magnetic resonance imaging, bioinformatics, surgical oncology
Project Description:
Glioblastoma is the most common form of primary brain cancer and has extremely poor survival outcomes. Standard of care surgical resections are image guided surgeries using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with contrast. However, this fails to visualize infiltrating tumor cells beyond the contrast enhancing bulk of tumor. We have developed a pH sensitive MRI technique called amine chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) MRI. In this proposal, we will prospectively study the ability for CEST MRI to visualize infiltrating tumor cells during surgery and identify on a molecular level what are the biological underpinnings for abnormalities in pH in these areas of tumor.