Center for Advanced Metabolic Imaging in Precision Medicine (CAMIPM) - ABSTRACT The “Center for Advanced Metabolic Imaging in Precision Medicine (CAMIPM)” is a National Center for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NCBIB) that will develop and translate cutting edge noninvasive metabolic imaging biomarkers for use in biomedical research. Technology development is focused in four major application areas: Oncology, Cardiovascular, Neuropsychiatric, and Musculoskeletal. Driven by collaborators across the country and in partnership with Penn’s clinical research institutes in these areas, a range of novel technologies will be developed, optimized, and implemented with the goal of providing mechanistic understanding of disease states based on fundamental biological properties that can also serve as treatment targets and biomarkers for monitoring therapeutic interventions. The proposed technological development will span from bench to bedside and will include a significant clinical research component. Four synergistic technological research and development (TR&D) projects will focus on 1) Chemical Exchange Weighted Molecular MRI for metabolic mapping in brain, heart, skeletal muscle, and tumors, 2) MRI Mapping of Oxygen Consumption in brain, muscle, and placenta 3) Down Field Spectroscopy of brain, heart, skeletal muscle, and tumors, and 4) Diffuse Optical imaging in tumors, brain, and muscle. Each of these TR&D projects will innovate and validate novel strategies for measuring tissue metabolism and translate these technologies to clinical populations through its collaborative projects, and dissemination through sharing of instrument design, MRI pulse sequences, data processing pipelines, and sample data as well as serving a multitude of funded service projects. The CAMIPM also proposes an extensive training and dissemination program in biomedical imaging through seminars, workshops, peer reviewed publications, targeted courses, hands-on training and a dedicated website and will train collaborators, service project investigators, students, postdoctoral fellows, and visiting scholars in the resource developed technologies. Core investigators have an outstanding track record of imaging technology research, technology dissemination, and of training the next generation of scientists in biomedical imaging technologies. An administrative component consisting of both internal and external advisory committees will oversee the fiscal matters, day-to-day activities as well as coordinate the TR&Ds, collaborations and service components. This project leverages an outstanding biomedical research environment with extensive resources for biomedical imaging research, strong institutional support, a compact campus housing nationally leading research and health care enterprises in very close proximity to basic science and engineering departments, closely integrated clinical-research institutes, and outstanding faculty and trainees. With its stellar faculty and unique biomedical focus, the CAMIPM is committed to interdisciplinary pursuit of basic and clinical research through technology development driven by its collaborators and through service to users geographically distributed across the country and thus has all the attributes required for a national NCBIB.
