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News U25

Unit 25 of NANBIOSIS and the research field of Protein Kinase CK2. 

Ana Paula Candiota and Carles Arús, Scientific Coordinator and Scientific Director of Unit 25 of NANBIOSIS, jointly with other GABRMN members, have recently published an interesting article in the journal Pharmaceuticals, (Special Issue An Updated View on an Emerging Target: Selected Papers from the 8th International Conference on Protein Kinase CK2). This article  is also co-authored by scientifics of a research group with renowned prestige in CK2 research field, the Protein Phosphorylation group, del Dipartimento di scienze biomediche (Università degli Studi di Padova).

This publication describes a study with the preclinical glioblastoma (GB) model and its treatment, centered in exploring the potential of other therapeutic (non-mutagenic) alternatives for preclinical GB. The results obtained suggest that Protein Kinase CK2 could be a suitable candidate target for GB treatment, which could be useful in combined treatments with temozolomide (TMZ), the standard of care currently used in clinics. Tumor-bearing animals under treatment were followed up with techniques of MRI, MRSI and DWI, and an interesting finding was the appearance of peritumoral brain edema in treated animals.

The acquisition and processing of MRI/MRSI/DWI data were performed in Unit 25 of NANBIOSIS

Article of reference:

Ferrer-Font, L.; Villamañan, L.; Arias-Ramos, N.; Vilardell, J.; Plana, M.; Ruzzene, M.; Pinna, L.A.; Itarte, E.; Arús, C.; Candiota, A.P. Targeting Protein Kinase CK2: Evaluating CX-4945 Potential for GL261 Glioblastoma Therapy in Immunocompetent Mice. Pharmaceuticals 2017, 10, 24.

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MRSI-based generation of nosological images for noninvasive therapy response assessment in preclinical GBM

Nuria Arias Ramos from GABRMN-UAB, research group coordinator of Unit 25 of NANBIOSIS, presented on January 30th, an oral communication at the youngSMIN | young Spanish Molecular Imaging Network Meeting.

The title of the communication is “Multi slice MRSI-based generation of nosological images for noninvasive therapy response assessment in preclinical GBM”, written by Nuria Arias-Ramos, SilviaLope-Piedrafita, Victor Mocioiu, Margarida Julià-Sapé, Carles Arús and Ana Paula Candiota.

The work is basically centered in extending the preliminary GABRMN study based on MRSI  acquired in a preclinical glioblastoma (GB), both under treatment and control, with pattern recognition and source extraction for noninvasive therapy response assessment. The preliminary study was  performed in a single tumoral slice, but the GB is a well-known heterogeneous tumor and also presents heterogenous response to treatment, so the multislice acquisition was an important step in order to characterize therapy response assessment as a whole, not centered in a single slice. Tumors were stratified in no response, partial response and high response after calculating the percentage of the ‘responding’ part of the tumor, and histopathological studies for correlation are in progress.

The MRSI acquisition and processing steps were performed in NANBIOSIS facility U25.

MRSI-based generation of nosological images for noninvasive therapy response assessment in preclinical GBM
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NANBIOSIS lecturers in B-Debate Imaging for Life. From Molecules to Diagnostics and Therapy

Last November took place in CosmoCaixa, Barcelona, the B-Debate Days Imaging for Life. Molecules from Diagnostics and Therapy.

The event, organized by B·Debate (an initiative of Biocat and “la Caixa” Foundation), IBB and LJS, was focussed on Biomolecular Imaging, with emphasis on molecular, cellular, tissular and small animal research, as well as biomedical applications, including noninvasive diagnostics, image guided surgery, multimodal imaging and theranostics.

Scientists of NANBIOIS Unit 20 and 25 were invited to participate as guest lecturers:

-Simó Schwartz, Scientific Director of Unit 20: New bioluminescent models to target cancer stem cells with nanomedicine.

-Ana Paula Candiota, Scientific Coordinator of Unit 25: Unravelling therapy response in preclinical glioblastoma using MRSI-based molecular imaging and source analysis.

As Professor Candiota explained “Characterization of Glioblastoma (GB) response to treatment is a key factor for improving patient survival and prognosis. Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopic Imaging (MRI/MRSI) provide morphologic and metabolic profiles of GB but usually fail to produce unequivocal surrogate biomarkers of response. Ideally, we would like to provide clinicians with early therapy response follow-up and an improved time frame for changing or adapting therapy schemes”. Her talk focussed in the capability of advanced pattern recognition techniques, such as semi-supervised signal source extraction, to produce nosological images with robust recognition of response to temozolomide (TMZ) in preclinical GB (GL261 tumour-bearing in immunocompetent C57BL/6 mice) through the information contained in MRSI grids. These techniques have a clear translational potential and could improve future patient management and care. The acquisition of mice MRSI data used for pattern recognition strategies development and evaluation was performed in the Biospec 7T scanner from U25.

NANBIOSIS lecturers in B-Debate Imaging for Life. From Molecules to Diagnostics and Therapy
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