Creating a New Community
Print Version UCSF, GE Healthcare Announce Cancer Research Collaboration
UCSF on Monday announced a new collaboration with GE
Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company, to develop new technology
for clinical use that tracks real-time changes in tissue metabolism with unprecedented
sensitivity.
The collaboration will focus on developing new magnetic resonance (MR) imaging
and spectroscopy techniques that are expected to enable earlier diagnosis and
treatment of cancer and other diseases tailored to individual patients.
The pre-clinical and clinical studies will be conducted at the California Institute
for Quantitative Biomedical Research, or QB3, headquartered at UCSF's Mission
Bay campus.
"Although MR images are widely used in a clinical setting, the information
they provide is often limited, resulting in diseases such as cancer being detected
only late in their cycle -- when treatments are costly or ineffective," said
Sarah Nelson, PhD, UCSF professor of radiology and director of the Surbeck Laboratory
of Advanced Imaging at QB3.
"Improved characterization of the disease is critical in efforts to influence
the chances of survival and make more treatment options available. The high-field
MR scanners at QB3 will significantly improve sensitivity and specificity, allowing
us to more effectively target therapy and provide noninvasive biomarkers of
response to new therapies," she said.
Patient-focused Approach
The technology is intended to aid in four major stages of disease identification
and treatment — prediction, screening, diagnosis and treatment. Ultimately,
the collaboration and resulting technology could be used as a model for changing
and improving the way a variety of cancers and other diseases are treated.
"The ultimate goal of the collaboration between GE Healthcare and UCSF is to
redefine the detection, diagnosis and treatment timeline of diseases such as
prostate cancer," said Bill Clarke, executive vice president and chief technology
and medical officer at GE Healthcare. "Better outcomes are dependent on earlier
diagnosis, followed by treatment tailored to the individual patient. This is
a holistic and patient-focused approach. We believe it can have a meaningful
and positive impact on people suffering from this life-threatening disease."
As part of the collaboration, GE has agreed to contribute knowledge in advanced
imaging techniques. UCSF is providing computational and clinical expertise.
"Understanding how and where disease begins provides the opportunity to better
predict that disease, select treatment that is most compatible with the individual,
and start that treatment at the earliest possible moment to increase the chances
of survival," said Clarke.
About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies that are shaping
a new age of patient care. GE Healthcare's expertise in medical imaging and
information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring and life support
systems, disease research, drug discovery and biopharmaceutical manufacturing
technologies is helping physicians detect disease earlier and tailor personalized
treatments for patients. GE Healthcare offers a broad range of products and
services that are improving productivity in healthcare and enhancing patient
care by enabling health care providers to better diagnose and treat cancer,
heart disease, neurological diseases and other conditions.
Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $15 billion unit of
General Electric Company (NYSE: GE. Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than
43,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients
in more than 100 countries.
Source: Wallace
Ravven
Links:
California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research
GE
Healthcare
First posted November 29, 2005
Last updated November 29, 2005
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