H. Charles Manning, PhD, assistant professor of Radiology, Neurosurgery, Biomedical Engineering, and Chemical and Physical Biology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has received two federal stimulus grants from the National Cancer Institute to study imaging techniques in colorectal cancer. The grants, totaling more than $1.6 million over two years, are part of the federal government’s stimulus package funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

 

The first award is a coveted Challenge Grant, which focuses on the broad area of biomarker discovery. Manning and his colleagues will be investigating a tracer called 18F-fluorothymidine (FLT) used in PET scans. FLT is injected into a patient with cancer and may localize in tumors, showing up as a bright spot on a PET scan under certain conditions. “We know FLT measures a specific aspect of cell proliferation, making it potentially useful for cancer imaging,” Manning explained. “FLT measures a protein called thymidine kinase 1 (TK1), which is involved in DNA synthesis. What is poorly understood is how cancer cells regulate TK1.”

 

The second grant is a 5-year RO1 award, with the first two years supported by stimulus funds.

 

That project will combine and compare three unique imaging modalities, including FLT-PET, Annexin-V SPECT imaging, and apparent diffusion coefficient mapping via MRI (ADC-MRI). The study will be performed in mouse models of colorectal cancer with the goal of understanding how synthesis of imaging metrics, or multimodality imaging, can be used to better understand cell proliferation and cell death in tumors.