Preclinical Optical Imaging of Infectious Diseases

PerkinElmer is a global leader in the development of instrumentation and probes for small animal non-invasive imaging, including optical and µCT imaging. Through optical imaging, we have developed a technology which allows biological processes, including gene expression that is temporally and spatially defined, to be non-invasively monitored both longitudinally and in real-time. Genes encoding optical reporters, luciferases and fluorescent proteins, are engineered into cells and pathogens (e.g., bacteria, viruses), or directly into animals (e.g., monitoring host responses) to enable the generation of light that can be visualized through the tissues of a live animal. PerkinElmer has optimized this technique to allow true three-dimensional optical imaging and tomographic multimodality imaging (e.g., through co-registration of optical imaging with µCT and MRI). Furthermore, this technique is equally applicable to imaging of fluorescent dyes and particles, allowing fluorescently tagged biological events (e.g., tracking of antibodies, peptides and viral capsids) to be monitored both independently and in combination with genetically tagged events. An overview of optical imaging in viral and bacterial disease research will be presented, showing how this approach can be used to refine and improve fundamental biological research, as well as drug development and clinical translation strategies.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the principle of non-invasive preclinical optical imaging as it relates to infectious disease research

2. Recognize different molecular imaging techniques for visualizing host-pathogen interactions