Poster prize awarded to Kirsten De Ridder for lung cancer research using images acquired at ACAM

Kirsten De Ridder, Postdoctoral researcher in the Molecular Imaging and Therapy Research Group (MITH) and the In vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Core Facility (ICMI) at the VUB, presented her data at the '20th European Molecular Imaging Meeting' in Bilbao. She was awarded the poster prize in the category "Cancer Biology & Tumour Microenvironment".

*Lung innervating neurons are visualized with a staining for βIII-tubulin (red), tissue is represented using autofluorescence (grey).*

At MITH, a successful orthotopic lung cancer model was developed to gain more insights into the innervation of the lung tumor microenvironment and the effect on tumor progression. A clearing protocol was optimized by MITH and images were acquired at ACAM on our Lavision Ultramicroscope II and rendered using Arivis software. In collaboration with The BioRobotics Institute at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa, Italy) this in toto imaging pipeline will now be used to map the autonomic nerves within the lung tumor microenvironment. This will aid in the design of neural interfaces capable of modulating nerve functioning, with the ultimate goal to reduce tumor progression.

This work highlights the fact that the shared knowledge between different partners of the Flanders BioImaging consortium (i.e. ICMI and ACAM) can augment research using multimodal imaging techniques.