Student Presentation
Mary Sisson, PhD student (Supervisor: Dr. Gerd Melkus)
Title: Evaluation of novel imaging biomarkers for quantifying early hip diseases
Abstract: Osteoarthritis (OA), characterized by pain and stiffness from joint degeneration, affects over 500 million people worldwide. Femoroacetabular impingement and acetabular dysplasia are precursors to OA in hips. Investigating these early hip diseases may provide insight into earlier stages of OA to allow prediction and intervention.
Non-invasive imaging approaches are needed for in vivo assessment of structural and biochemical changes in joint tissues. Advanced modalities including PET and MRI provide complementary insights into cartilage composition and bone metabolism, but their ability to reflect underlying pathophysiology and detect early disease has yet to be established. 18F-NaF PET provides information on active bone remodeling, as sodium is absorbed during this process. T1rho MRI uses a preparation spin-lock pulse to measure relaxation time relative to a smaller field. This allows quantification of low frequency interactions including proteoglycans in cartilage, the loss of which indicates early degeneration. Combining these, PET-MRI allows simultaneous imaging of bone and cartilage content.
This presentation will discuss the use of 18F-NaF PET and T1rho MRI in evaluating early stages of hip degeneration for predicting surgical outcomes and disease progression.
Member Presentation
Sangeeta Murugkar, PhD, Associate Professor, Medical Physics, Carleton University
Title: From Light to Insight: Optical spectroscopy and imaging applications in radiation medicine and cancer diagnostics
Abstract: Optical imaging technologies are non-invasive, can operate across ranges of resolution (as high as ~0.5 µm), are low cost and can be translated into point-of-care devices. In particular, Raman spectroscopy and multimodal coherent Raman imaging can provide biochemical, structural and functional information from cells and tissues with high sensitivity and specificity without the addition of external contrast agents. This talk will describe my team’s work in developing advanced Raman techniques combined with machine learning to identify optical imaging biomarkers of oxidative stress caused by cancer and ionizing radiation. This work has applications in rapid cancer diagnostics, biodosimetry, and the study of low-dose radiation effects.