Abstract
Modern bio-imaging technologies like magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy (MRI/MRS) as well as some others have attained an important role in medical research due to low invasiveness and ability to provide functional information about biological systems in vivo. Such information could be obtained from the same subject repeatedly and with the least possible interference, which makes bio-imaging a unique and indispensable tool in toxicological and drug safety research. Most of bio-imaging modalities and techniques are intrinsically translatable – the same methodology can be applied pre-clinically in animals and in clinical settings. A great opportunity exists to leverage the advances in clinical imaging to improve the translatability of nonclinical safety assessments. Development of non-invasive imaging biomarkers of toxicity holds the promise to drastically improve contemporary safety assessment paradigms. This talk will provide the technical description of bio-imaging technologies and challenges of their use in the development of imaging biomarkers to support drug safety and other toxicological research settings.
