May 8 , 2007
Mike van Dam Joins Crump Faculty
Mike van Dam brings a broad range of knowledge covering the fields of physics, computer science, mechanical engineering as well as materials science and chemistry to Crump Institute. Dr. van Dam’s initial dissertation research, in the laboratory of Professor Steve Quake, addressed the question of developing universal gene array chips, in contrast to the currently available species- and gene-specific chips. He continued this post-doc training with Professor Jim Heath at Caltech, where he applied his technology and insights to develop microfluidic chips for PET radiopharmaceutical synthesis.

March 16, 2007
Caught in the Act
Dr. Caius Radu and collegues have employed metabolic imaging using FDG-PET, to follow the progression and treatment of autoimmune disease in a preclinical model. Using a mouse model of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), they were able to monitor immune cell infiltration in the spinal cord. Their work appeared Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS 104:1937, 2007), and was also highlighted in the Biomedicine Select column in the March issue of  Cell. 

March 7, 2007
National Cancer Institute Awards Five Year Cooperative Agreement to Support the Small Animal Imaging Resource (SAIR) at the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging
With this agreement, our state of the art imaging resource continues to be one of the twelve NCI funded institutions (link). This resource is currently supporting many Principle Investigators with research projects focused around cancer across the UCLA research community. Following is an excerpt from the abstract of this grant:

"UCLA has a mature small animal imaging program based on micro-positron emission tomography, x-ray micro computed tomography, in-vivo bioluminescence and digital whole body autoradiography imaging.  Central to this program, is our small animal imaging resource (SAIR), which provides service and support through a state of the art facility to more than 24 independent Principal Investigators funded through the NIH and other agencies.  Most of the research projects of these investigators are focused in cancer diagnosis and therapy.  In addition to this service component, the roles of the SAIR within the UCLA and the US environments are to: (a) educate students, post-doctoral scholars, physicians and other biology researchers from within and outside UCLA in the tools, technologies and applications of imaging, and (b) foster collaborations and develop new technologies and methodologies that will improve the quantitative capabilities of non-invasive imaging.  These goals will hopefully lead to better understanding of human disease and might lead to better methods for diagnosis and treatment of cancer."

March 5, 2007
Caius Radu Joins Crump Faculty
Caius Radu brings experience in immunology and in vivo imaging to the Crump Institute. After receiving his M.D. degree in Romania, Dr. Radu continued his training in molecular immunology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and in Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at UCLA. Dr. Radu's research concerns the development of novel PET probes to image T lymphocyte activation and evaluation of cancer immunotherapy using PET reporter gene imaging approaches.

March 1, 2007
Nobel Symposium
Crump Institute Director Michael E. Phelps will deliver the keynote address at the upcoming Nobel Symposium at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm in May. The Symposium on “Watching Life through Molecular Imaging” will document the emergence of molecular imaging as a powerful approach for the visual representation, characterization, and quantification of biological processes in living organisms. The symposium will feature an international group of speakers including Elias Zerhouni, Director, National Institutes of Health, and our own Crump Institute Associate Director, Anna Wu.

February, 2007
ImmunoPET Advance
Crump scientists Anna Wu and Tove Olafsen joined with Stanford University’s Weibo Cai, Shawn Chen and Sam Gambhir to produce a novel engineered antibody fragment labeled with F-18 for rapid PET imaging of cancer. Their report describing the F-18 anti-CEA diabody appeared in the February issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine (48:304-310, 2007) and was the highlight of an accompanying invited commetary.

January 25, 2007
Dr. Hsian-Rong Tseng Among Team of Caltech/UCLA Chemists Who Have Created Memory Circuit with the Size of a Human White Blood Cell
 
Researchers have created a memory circuit the size of a white blood cell that has enough capacity to store the Declaration of Independence and have space left over. With 160 kilobits of capacity, it's the densest memory circuit ever fabricated.

Announcing the achievement in the January 25 issue of the journal Nature, the team led by chemistry professor James Heath of the California Institute of Technology says that the memory circuit is a milestone in manufacturing, even if it's not anywhere near readiness for the market. Read the Full Story