Molecular imaging in drug discovery and development

Imaging technologies exploit the interaction of various forms of energy with tissues to non-invasively visualize the body.Many imaging techniques were originally developed for human use, but have recently been scaled-down to allow the high-resolution imaging of mice. This is highly relevant, because as genomics provides us with better animal models of disease, imaging readouts can be used to evaluate novel therapeutics.Imaging methods offer several advantages over other current practices in drug discovery, examples of which are discussed in this article:The use of imaging endpoints instead of time-consuming dissection and histology can significantly decrease the workload involved in tissue analysis and thereby speed up the evaluation of drug candidates.Imaging can provide biomarkers of a disease process and thus help to define stratified study groups.As imaging methods are non-invasive, they allow for longitudinal studies in a single animal. This increases the statistical relevance of a study, allows for more clinically relevant study designs and decreases the number of animals required.Imaging can also provide important information on the optimal timing and dosing of drugs.Emerging molecular-imaging tools can provide much earlier surrogate markers of therapy success than is currently possible.