Multi-Modal Approaches and Histopathological Validation in Tissue Microstructure Imaging

Non-invasive imaging plays an important role in fundamental biology and clinical practice. In recent years there has been a growing interest in probing changes in tissue microstructure not only as a diagnostic marker of disease but also as a measure of treatment response to various therapies. For example, recent studies demonstrated that both ultrasound and MRI evaluation of tumour microstructure can be very useful in evaluating tumour response to treatment and in some cases can predict the treatment outcome. The goal of the Tissue Microstructure Imaging GRC is to provide a wide forum for scientific exchange among scientists whose primary area of research is determination of tissue microstructure using non-invasive imaging methods such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), ultrasound (US) and optical methods. The main objective of the meeting is to compare performance of different imaging methods, stimulate cross-pollination and validation of different imaging techniques, models and analysis tools, and determine what combination of imaging modalities provides more accurate, robust and biologically relevant assessment of tissue microstructure. The scientific topics of the GRC are focused on imaging several aspects of tissue pathology such as apoptosis, necrosis, inflammation, neuro-degeneration, changes in vasculature and cellular organization; processes that are prevalent in many diseases. We would like to invite researchers from different areas of imaging science who use different modalities to study structural aspects of tissue biology and apply physical models of tissue microstructure and image reconstruction tools to aid imaging data interpretation.