Despite all efforts, cancer is still a growing health problem and the second cause of death worldwide, early cancer diagnosis being paramount for increasing survival rates. The improved understanding of the carcinogenic mechanisms, at a molecular level, led to the development of several imaging techniques able to monitor these processes non-invasively in vivo and to characterise the key chemical changes associated with malignancy, thus identifying cancer biomarkers. At present, these molecular imaging technologies play a central role in oncology, and include as routine techniques positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (diffusion MRI), the latter being one of the most widely used imaging tool although it can only probe global water tissue dynamics (at the micron scale).
\nBuilding on the previous research activity of the team relying on vibrational spectroscopy to study the impact of novel Pt\/Pd anticancer agents in human cancer cells, the current project aims at developing optical diagnostic methods based on these same techniques applied to tissue, as much required tools to aid pathologists in the early detection of cancer. Accordingly, a highly collaborative workplan is proposed, based on the complementary methodologies: (i) Optical vibrational microspectroscopy \u2013 Raman (including coherent Raman imaging technologies) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR, comprising synchrotron radiation infrared microspectrocopy (SR-IRMS)), yielding chemical images containing fingerprint profiles for each tested condition; (ii) inelastic and quasi-elastic neutron scattering techniques (INS and QENS), for interrogating water structure and dynamics as an innovative approach for disclosing diagnostic biomarkers. Indeed, neutron scattering is able to distinguish free from restricted water diffusion processes at the atomic scale, thus extending the available length-scale of MRI in a perfectly complementary way. These are state-of-the-art techniques for obtaining high resolution information at the cellular\/tissue level, particularly useful for histopatological analysis and differentiation between healthy and diseased physiological conditions.
\nIn summary, this project aims at contributing to the development of leading-edge vibrational spectroscopy techniques with high sensitivity and specificity for an effective molecular diagnostics of cancer and pre-cancer lesions, which is still an unmet clinical need. Such accurate and non-invasive diagnostic tools are expected to have a major impact on chemotherapeutic success and on the development of personalised treatments to enhance cancer care.
\nThe success of this study is ensured by the expertise of the team members in the different approaches to be used, in a close scientific collaboration between six research laboratories (national and international), a health care institution (in the area of oncology) and a leader company in nano-analytical microspectroscopy systems.<\/p>\n
State<\/b>
\nFinished
\nPer\u00edodo<\/b>
\n2018 a 2021
\nFunding<\/b>
\n239.940,00 \u20ac
\nProject code<\/b>
\nC491215625-00083205
\nFunding Entity<\/b>
\nPortuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Portugal e C2020, Portugal<\/p>\n
Members<\/b> Despite all efforts, cancer is still a growing health problem and the second cause of death worldwide, early cancer diagnosis being paramount for increasing survival rates. The improved understanding of the carcinogenic mechanisms, at a molecular level, led to the development of several imaging techniques able to monitor these processes non-invasively in vivo and to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":596,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1597","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qfm.uc.pt\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qfm.uc.pt\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qfm.uc.pt\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qfm.uc.pt\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qfm.uc.pt\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qfm.uc.pt\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4697,"href":"https:\/\/qfm.uc.pt\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1597\/revisions\/4697"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qfm.uc.pt\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qfm.uc.pt\/index.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nLu\u00eds Alberto Esteves Batista de Carvalho<\/a>\u00a0(Principal Investigator)
\nMaria Paula Matos Marques Catarro<\/a>
\nAna Margarida Amado Roque Batista
\nAna L\u00facia Marques Batista de Carvalho<\/a>
\nAdriana Maria Pires Mamede<\/a>
\nIn\u00eas Dias Lamego<\/a>
\nPaula Sofia Coutinho Medeiros
\nAna Isabel Rodrigues Silva<\/a>
\nArmando Caseiro<\/a>
\nPaulo Figueiredo
\nJuan Carlos Otero
\nCristina Ruano Frias
\nPeter Gardner
\nHugh Byrne
\nFiona Lyng
\nGianfelice Cinque
\nJames Doherty
\nVicktoria Garcia-Sakai
\nSvemir Rudic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"