Once therapeutic cells are injected, it is imperative to know as to where the cells went and if they reached the target or not, if so are they functioning and have they restored the function of the target organ. It is also important to know whether cells went to undesirable organs and whether they have started forming tumours.
By using the multi-modality imaging technologies, the CPI have been able to demonstrate that after ultrasound guided injections, stem cells reach the target organs (kidney and liver). Ongoing studies include high resolution imaging of the kidneys to assess distribution of stem cells within the kidney as well as restoration of the kidney functioning using Multi-spectral Optoacoustic Tomography. The stem cells in these experiements were labelled with novel contrast agents that were developed and tested.
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