CEA-Leti’s new imaging system for fDOT ready for commercialization, use in measuring and treating cancer

GRENOBLE, FRANCE: CEA-Leti announced that after extensive beta testing at five French research facilities, its new imaging system for near-infrared fluorescence-enhanced diffuse optical tomography (fDOT) is ready for commercial applications.

fDOT systems help researchers quantify cancer activity and evaluate treatment efficiency. They provide quantitative functional measurements for the pharmacological industry in experiments on small animals, typically mice. After target-specific fluorescent molecular probes are injected into the mice, the probes’ distribution in the tissue is reconstructed, enabling both 3D localization of the targeted areas and quantization of the local concentration of the fluorescent dye.

But fDOT existing systems are currently limited by the extent of tissue heterogeneity and the complex surface shape of the animals.

CEA-Leti’s new fDOT imaging system enables reconstruction of the fluorescence yield even in heterogeneous and highly attenuating body regions such as the lungs, and it doesn’t require immersing the mice in optical index-matching liquid.

After being injected with a cancer-specific fluorescent marker, the mice are scanned with near-infrared light over the area of interest. The system records outgoing transmitted and emitted fluorescent lights and reconstructs the 3D fluorescence map to infer cancer localization and activity. For in vivo experiments on small animals, the reconstruction method takes into account heterogeneous optical properties of the biological tissues and complex-shape-object geometries.

Research teams at five French beta-sites, including the Albert Bonniot Institute (IAB) in Grenoble, and Service Hospitalier Frédéric Joliot (SHJF) in Orsay near Paris, have validated CEA-Leti’s fDOT systems in studies on more than 1 000 mice.

“This level of maturity in a new technology, which has been validated by five beta sites, demonstrates that our fDOT imaging system is ready for commercialization,” said CEA-Leti CEO Laurent Malier.

“These studies have shown high quality reconstruction results, particularly in terms of sensitivity, linearity and spatial resolution, all of which compare favorably to the top commercially available fDOT systems. We invite industrial partners to discuss ways to commercialize this system, including transfer of the technology, know-how and IP.”