Small Animal Imaging Center Design: The Facility at the UCLA Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging

Abstract

Purpose-The growing number of mouse and rat experiments, coupled with advances in smallanimal imaging systems such as microPET ® , optical, microCAT ™ , microMR, ultrasound and microSPECT, has necessitated a common technical center for imaging small animals.Procedures-At the UCLA Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging, we have designed and built a facility to support the research interests of a wide range of investigators from multiple disciplines. Requirements to satisfy both research and regulatory oversight have been critically examined. Support is provided for investigator training, study scheduling, data acquisition, archiving, image display, and analysis.Results-The center has been in operation for more than 18 months, supporting more than 13,000 individual imaging procedures.Conclusions-We have created a facility that maximizes our resource utilization while providing optimal investigator support, as well as the means to continually improve the quality and diversity of the science by integrating physical and biological sciences.

MicroCT Liver Contrast Agent Enhancement Over Time, Dose, and Mouse Strain

“…All mice were imaged in a multimodality chamber designed to allow us to maintain the mice on isoflurane anesthesia at 1-2% during all scans and provide heating during scans to maintain the mice's body temperature [9]. The chamber also enables reproducible positioning to less than 1 mm, thus minimizing any attenuation variability due to animal positioning.…”

Investigation of the minimum detectable activity level of a preclinical LSO PET scanner

“…The data was histogrammed in time frames of 30sec, 1min, 2min, 5min and 10min. These acquisition times are realistic and compatible with routine operation of a small animal imaging resource [8].…”

“…We performed a 10min acquisition, using the large energy window of 250-700keV, which is the standard window of microPET applied for most small animal imaging studies. This window is selected to maximize the scanner sensitivity [8]. The data was histogrammed in time frames of 30sec, 1min, 2min, 5min and 10min.…”

MIDG-Emerging grid technologies for multi-site preclinical molecular imaging research communities

“…Although efforts have been devoted to the automation of computational workflows, data archiving, and data dissemination in preclinical imaging facilities have been comparatively primitive due to informatics challenges caused by non-standardized data formats, complex experimental metadata, and antiquated storage infrastructure [9][10][11].…”

“…At UCLA's Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging, a web-based interface is implemented on campus for investigators to schedule scan sessions in advance and request their own datasets to be made available on university-wide fileservers [9]. The physical data archive consists of network file servers that organize datasets under individual investigator folders.…”