Total Optical Coherence Characterization for Automated Tumor Analysis

Introduction

Drug resistance, whether intrinsic or acquired during the course of treatment, is the primary cause of cancer treatment failure. Resistance is a complex and highly personalized problem, depending on tumor-specific, genetic, and other factors, but certain cancers are particularly difficult to treat.

Glioblastoma and Treatment Challenges

In particular, the most common and deadliest type of cancer originating in the brain, glioblastoma (GBM), is aggressive and highly resistant to treatment. Due to the complex nature of GBM, advanced methods for screening personalized treatment strategies are critically needed to improve patient outcomes.

Cell Spheroids as a Model

Cell spheroids are 3D tissue cultures that have proven to be a more accurate model of tumor tissue for therapeutic testing. However, they are sensitive to their growth and preparation conditions. Variability in spheroid properties may affect the results of therapeutic testing, so a method of identifying spheroids with properties that match the original tissue is needed.

Proposed Solution

In order to combat GBM and other drug-resistant cancers, we propose the development of two novel optical imaging systems. These systems will perform non-destructive characterization of tumor tissue and live monitoring of in vitro drug testing on tumor spheroids.

Imaging System Design

Both imaging systems use a unique design to scan the tissue samples at different angles to quantify a wide range of optical properties within the tissue with 3D micron scale resolution. This approach integrates several different optical coherence tomography-based methods and addresses their weaknesses to create a unique platform for comprehensive measurements of optical properties.

Application and Impact

This platform will be used to scan the original tumor tissue and the resulting tumor spheroids to identify which spheroids will most reliably mimic the original tumor tissue for testing different therapeutic interventions. This approach has the potential to advance the field of personalized medicine and enable more rapid and reliable development of cancer therapies.