ONTARIO - Image is Everything

Ontario is strong in imaging research and technologies

By Amber Lepage-Monette

Imaging — as basic as X-rays, or as technologically advanced as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) — is a field of research in Ontario’s diverse biomedical sector that has become impressive in stature and gained much acclaim.

Varied in their application, imaging technologies can assist in diagnosing and treating conditions such as cardiovascular disease, asthma and mental illness. Imaging technologies are helping better define clinical trials, and are even changing the way surgery is performed. More recently, imaging technologies are being used to bridge vast geographical expanses.

At the Forefront
One centre in particular, located in London, Ont., has gained a lead position in imaging research. Ask anyone working in imaging today, and they will either mention the Robarts Research Institute as one of the leading centres in this area, or as one they will be collaborating with for their own research.

Robarts boasts two Canada Research Chairs, three Premier’s Research Excellence Award winners, is collaborating with three Networks of Centres of Excellence, and has produced three spin-off companies.

When it comes to Robarts’s success, president and scientific director Mark Poznansky, PhD is quick to credit those in the trenches.

“It’s just hiring really smart people and then providing them with the resources,” he says.
Robarts has a total staff of 600, with 220 working at the imaging laboratories. Because it has now built up a reputation as an institute that excels in imaging, Poznansky says finding top researchers in this field requires little effort.

“We can get our pick of the crop of Americans, Canadians, (and) Europeans to come to our imaging facility,” he says.

“My biggest problem right now with imaging is not letting them take over the whole institute,” Poznansky laughs.

Robarts imaging researchers work with virtually every type of imaging technology available: computerized tomography (CT), ultrasound, MRI, fMRI and X-ray.

The imaging research laboratories are working in mouse-based preclinical imaging; investigating the use of imaging in establishing new clinical surrogate end points for clinical trials; determining which imaging technologies are most effective in clinical settings; and are working to develop a machine that amalgamates CT, X-ray, ultrasound and MRI for image-guided surgery, Poznansky explains.

Additionally, Robarts imaging researchers are currently collaborating with Merck Frosst Canada Ltd. (Kirkland, QC) and GE Healthcare (Chalfont St. Giles, U.K.) to develop an MRI technology that uses the hyperpolarized gases xenon and helium to better visualize air entering the lungs, for research in the areas of asthma and respiratory disease.

Brain Waves
A clinical researcher also working in imaging, Dr. Matthew Hogan, PhD, an associate scientist in neuroscience at Ottawa Health Research Institute (Ottawa, ON) is currently collaborating with various research groups, including Robarts, to look at imaging technologies in a variety of applications.

Along with researchers from several Ottawa-area hospitals, Hogan is investigating the use of CT scanning methods to identify salvageable areas of the brain following acute ischemic stroke.

“(CT) lets us get 3-D slices through the brain,” Hogan explains. “That in itself has revolutionized clinical neurosciences.”

With Robarts researchers, Hogan is using CT imaging to study brain metabolism.

“We’ve been using that to actually look at regional brain blood flow, or regional cerebral profusion, and there are several parameters that we can measure from that,” he says. “We think from those parameters we can predict areas of the brain that may be amenable to therapy and areas that are dead.

“And we think that that would help clinicians make decisions when making therapy decisions in an acute setting.”

Mighty Mouse
Another centre that has built a name for itself is the Mouse Imaging Centre (MICe), located at the Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, ON).

Collaborating with researchers from around the world, the MICe screens mice for models of human disease using MRI, micro-CT, ultrasound biomicroscopy and optical techniques.

“The idea was to take everything we know about human imaging and, where we can and in the best ways that we can, adapt that to the scale of the mouse,” MICe researcher and director Mark Henkelman, PhD says of the centre’s origins.

Imaging not only allows MICe researchers to investigate virtually any disease, but also to look at the same mouse at multiple time points over the course of a trial to track disease progression, rather than having to study a large number of mice and sacrifice several at each time point. It also allows the mouse to serve as its own control.

Henkelman says MICe’s success has been fuelled by its desire to stay at the forefront of imaging research.

“We tried to get at the front of the line as fast as we could,” he says. “People have given us lots and lots of money to do this, and that means we’ve been able to get a big staff . . . we’ve been able to buy very good machinery, the best that we can get.”

Digital Links
Another interesting advance in the use of imaging technology is the application of its power to link hospitals and researchers digitally.

The Southwestern Ontario Digital Imaging Network is a collaborative pilot project that connects eight hospitals from the Thames Valley area — which includes Ingersoll, Newbury, London, St. Thomas, Strathroy, Tillsonburg and Woodstock — in an effort to see them become “filmless,” and to facilitate the transfer and sharing of imaging information.

By placing digital imaging information onto the network system, doctors and researchers within the eight hospitals can access results minutes after tests are taken, and can view the images from anywhere in the hospital system. They can also easily share images amongst themselves.

The all-digital system is not only proving efficient for doctors and researchers, but the time-saving aspect also allows for better patient care, says Diane Beattie, CIO and integrated vice-president of St. Joseph’s Health Care, London (London, ON) and the London Health Sciences Centre (London, ON).

Beattie explains that under the older system, patients often had to wait several hours before consulting with their physician. Before that could happen, X-rays had to be taken, then the film processed, then sent to the physician.

With the new system in place, patients are usually done in about one hour, Beattie says.
As several of the hospitals in the Southwestern project are also teaching hospitals, the new networked system also proves advantageous when it comes to student-teacher relations.

“You have a doctor that has his office here, but the resident may be visiting a patient up at one of the other campuses. And so, before, the resident may call and say to the consultant, ‘Well, I’m seeing this, what do you think?’” Beattie explains. “Now they can bring the image up on the screen, they can both have the same image up on screen and talk (it) through . . . so you can get into a lot better teaching environment or consulting environment.”

Regional Prowess
Poznansky says Ontario’s strength in imaging research can be traced to a singular source.
“The University of Toronto was that nidus that produced that excellence,” he says, citing the department of medical biophysics in particular. “Many of our students actually graduated out of that program.”

Henkelman agrees that Ontario has been able to build an impressive name in imaging, but feels funding — thanks to the Ontario Research and Development Challenge Fund (ORCDF) — is a major factor as well.

Through ORDCF support, the Imaging Network of Ontario (INO) was established. The INO holds an annual conference, which allows Ontario imaging researchers to discuss their work.

“The last couple of years we’ve been finding lots of Americans coming along just to hear,” Henkelman says. “And compared with international conferences I go to it really is more than respectable, it’s really impressive.”

One should remember that imaging is not something that happened overnight, Henkelman adds.

“These imaging programs are 25 years old. There are a lot of graduates that have come out of them, and so there are a lot of highly qualified people around to move the agenda forward.”

In the end, Ontario’s strength in the area of imaging may come from its diversity. Hogan says each region excels in its own ways.

“I think Ontario has both the ability to generate the basic observations and the new technologies, and then apply them to the clinical setting,” he says.

“These centres have been built from the visions of their founders,” Hogan adds, “and they’ve attracted excellent researchers and have produced very useful and interesting discoveries.”

For more information on imaging and biomedical research, please visit the following Web sites:

Atamai Inc.
www.atamai.com

BioMark Imaging Inc.
www.biomarkimaging.com

Genome Canada
www.genomecanada.ca

Hospital for Sick Children
www.sickkids.on.ca

Imaging Network Ontario
www.imagingnetworkontario.ca

Imaging Research Laboratories at Robarts Research Institute
www.imaging.robarts.ca

London Health Sciences Centre
www.lhsc.on.ca

Mouse Imaging Centre
www.mouseimaging.bioinfo.sickkids.on.ca

Northern Centre for Biotechnology and Clinical Research
www.neureka.com

Ottawa Health Research Institute
www.ohri.ca

Robarts Research Institute
www.robarts.ca

Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre
www.sunnybrookandwomens.on.ca

Visual Sonics Inc.
www.visualsonics.com

XLR Imaging Inc.
www.xlrimaging.com

For more information on Ontario’s universities, please visit the following Web sites:

Brock University
www.brocku.ca

Carleton University
www.carleton.ca

Lakehead University
www.lakeheadu.ca

Laurentian University
www.laurentian.ca

McMaster University
www.mcmaster.ca

Nipissing University
www.nipissingu.ca

Queen’s University
www.queensu.ca

Trent University
www.trentu.ca

University of Guelph
www.uoguelph.ca

University of Ottawa
www.uottawa.ca

University of Toronto
www.utoronto.ca

University of Waterloo
www.uwaterloo.ca

University of Western Ontario
www.uwo.ca

University of Windsor
www.uwindsor.ca

Wilfred Laurier University
www.wlu.ca

York University
www.yorku.ca