Cancer Imaging

The Cancer Imaging Group (CIG) within the UCL Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging uses state-of-the art biomedical imaging techniques to better understand and quantify the tumour microenvironment.

Principal Investigators

Meet the principal investigators using biomedical imaging techniques to better understand and quantify the tumour microenvironment.

Professor Tammy Kalber

Professor of Cell and Molecular Imaging at the Department of Imaging

Professor Mark Lythgoe

Professor of Biomedical Imaging at the Department of Imaging

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Our work

We are interested in creating new imaging agents and techniques to understand cancer growth, development, and death. Imaging allows us to study these processes in living organisms with unrivalled temporal and spatial resolution.

Through the development of these imaging biomarkers, we can probe the inner workings of the cancer cell itself, explore how the tumour interacts with its microenvironment, or monitor how existing, or emerging therapies (e.g., immunotherapy) can be exploited to kill the tumour.

We are taking a multi-modal approach to tackle these important questions, using traditional imaging technologies (MRI, PET) and new three-dimensional microscopy techniques, such as high-resolution episcopic microscopy and optical projection tomography.

We are also exploring ways to extract further information from more traditional imaging techniques to further understand the role of tumour interstitial pressure and tumour redox status on drug resistance.

3D-reconstruction of the metastatic liver microvascular architecture (single lobe).

New Non-Invasive Imaging Techniques

We aim to develop new techniques for measuring a range of key characteristics of tumours, noninvasively. Using new approaches in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), we are developing methods for quantifying cell size and the three-dimensional ordering of cells and blood vessels (using VERDICT-MRI).

Likewise, we are investigating the use of MRI acquisitions that are sensitive to flow to measure both convection through the interstitium (and the build-up of fluid pressure that this can cause) and blood flow.

Combining this with techniques such as magnetic resonance elastography (to measure tissue stiffness), quantitative susceptibility mapping and contrast-enhanced MRI, we can form a detailed portrait of the tumour microenvironment, without the need to invasively sample the tissue.

Each of these physiological measurements can also impact on the delivery of anticancer agents to tumour tissue. A key component of our work is to investigate how easily different drugs penetrate tumours.

Multiscale, Multimodal Analysis

By combining data acquired in living organisms with high-resolution data acquired after the tissue has been surgically removed, we aim to better understand the imaging techniques that we use, and to provide a more complete picture of the disease process.

We are actively exploring new three-dimensional microscopy techniques to complement our in vivo techniques. This includes high-resolution episcopic micrscopy (HREM), optical projection tomography (OPT), lightsheet microscopy and conventional fluorescence and brightfield microscopy.

Computational Analysis

Our sensitive, three-dimensional imaging technologies allow tissue structure and function to be imaged at high resolution (up to 0.75µm) and across large volumes, even up to the scale of whole organs.

This type of data is used to computationally simulate physiological processes (e.g., blood flow, oxygen delivery), alongside providing a test bed to trial new hypotheses in cancer therapy.

In collaboration with other researchers at UCL, we are developing mathematical models to quantify the tumour microenvironment, and to simulate drug delivery.

Concept image of a image split into quarters by a black frame

Clinical Translation

A key aim of developing and understanding new imaging technologies is to ultimately translate them into the clinic. Specifically, our MRI techniques are being actively trialled in cancer patients, and their use in the assessment of anticancer agents is being investigated.