Understanding how tumor blood vessels form and how they respond to current and experimental therapies is critically important in the fight again cancer, but exceeding difficult to measure.

In work published  in the October 2009 issue of Nature Medicine, Wellman Center investigators Ben Vakoc, Brett Bouma, and Gary Tearney describe an approach that may make those measurements a little easier. The researchers used optical frequency domain imaging (OFDI) – an imaging technology invented at the Wellman Center – to reveal the three-dimensional network of blood vessels in tumors at unprecedented detail.

The technology is based on the detection of backscattered laser light from structures within the tumor. Using coherent interference of the backscattered light in combination with temporal analysis of the backscattered signals, the blood vessels were localized and mapped at high resolution.

By partnering with Rakesh Jain and other tumor biologists from the MGH Steele Laboratory at the onset of the project, the effort was designed to address some of the most critical technological gaps that slow progress in the modern cancer biology laboratory. It is the hope of the research team that the understanding provided by this technology will help to accelerate the development of the next generation of treatment strategies.

See the article in Nature Medicine
(http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v15/n10/abs/nm.1971.html)

Read the research highlight in Nature
(http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7262/full/461318a.html)

For more on the investigators’ research programs
Vakoc Laboratory
Bouma/Tearney
Steele laboratory (http://steele.mgh.harvard.edu)