Molecular Imaging of Brain Tumours

Molecular Imaging enables a non-invasive assessment of the dynamics of disease-specific molecular events in the living organism in vivo. Various imaging modalities including positron emission tomography (PET), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and optical imaging are being used to assess a variety of molecular mechanisms, such as gene expression, transcriptional regulation and signal transduction. In brain tumors the imaging targets are endogenous genes as markers for the proliferative activity of the tumor, exogenously introduced genes as markers for the effectiveness of gene therapeutic strategies, and signal transduction and transcriptional regulatory pathways for the improved understanding of glioma development. The most important application of molecular imaging is in translational research, where new forms of molecular targeted therapies should be implemented in clinical application.