Imaging Cancer Progression

The article in Nature shows how imaging of the growth and progression of cancer cells can be accomplished.

As they state:

First used by cancer biologists in the late 1990s, intravital imaging involves focusing powerful microscopes directly onto exposed tissue in a live, anaesthetized mouse. More labs have adopted intravital imaging as technological improvements have made it possible to peer further into tissue — now as many as 20 cells deep — and to tease out fainter signals. A growing library of molecular markers has given researchers the ability to visualize up to eight different kinds of cells and structures, including various immune-system cells and the endothelial cells that line blood vessels.

 They then state:

As intravital imaging of cancer has matured, the field has moved beyond eye-catching films and has begun to generate quantitative data detailing, for example, the speed and direction of moving cells. Such data allow researchers to construct and refine mathematical models of cell behaviour. These could predict, for example, how tumour cells invade tissues, says Friedl.But generating such quantitative data is difficult and time-consuming: analysing the movies can take up to 15 times longer than making them...

 We have argued that such data collection could best be accomplished in the context of having a model and then estimating the model parameters and also modifying the model accordingly.

It will be of significant interest to see this area progress. Yet with so many data collection projects having a data analysis methodology is essential.