Molecular Imaging of Small Animals

This book examines the fundamental concepts of multimodality small-animal molecular imaging technologies and their numerous applications in biomedical research. Driven primarily by the widespread availability of various small-animal models of human diseases replicating accurately biological and biochemical processes in vivo, this is a relatively new yet rapidly expanding field that has excellent potential to become a powerful tool in biomedical research and drug development.

In addition to being a powerful clinical tool, a number of imaging modalities including but not limited to CT, MRI, SPECT and PET are also used in small laboratory animal research to visualize and track certain molecular processes associated with diseases such as cancer, heart disease and neurological disorders in living small animal models of disease. In vivo small-animal imaging is playing a pivotal role in the scientific research paradigm enabling to understand human molecular biology and pathophysiology using, for instance, genetically engineered mice with spontaneous diseases that closely mimic human diseases.

“Molecular Imaging of Small Animals: Instrumentation and Applications, Zaidi … examines the most important techniques used for small-animal molecular imaging, analysing every aspect of each modality. … this publication should be available in all departments of nuclear medicine and diagnostic imaging, considering that molecular imaging is already living in the present.” (Giuseppe Danilo Di Stasio and Luigi Mansi, European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Vol. 42, 2015)

• Department of Radiology & Medical Informatics, Geneva University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland

  Habib Zaidi

Habib Zaidi, Ph.D is Chief Physicist and head of the PET Instrumentation & Neuroimaging Laboratory at Geneva University Hospital and faculty member at the medical school of Geneva University. He is also a Professor of Medical Physics at the University Medical Center of Groningen (The Netherlands) and visiting Professor at Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Electronique et de ses Applications (ENSEA, France). Dr. Zaidi is actively involved in developing imaging solutions for cutting-edge interdisciplinary biomedical research and clinical diagnosis in addition to lecturing undergraduate and postgraduate courses on medical physics and medical imaging.

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