# Advanced micro-PET/CT/RT System for Translational Radiation Oncology Applications

> **NIH NIH R01** · UT SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER · 2020 · $75,780

## Abstract

Project Summary
For radiation therapy (RT), the capability to precisely define and delivery radiations with the targeted
distribution and dose level and to adapt the treatment plan based on the tumor biological response to RT is the
key for any successful clinical therapy and translational research. For improving the current RT protocols and
develop new novel RT strategies, it is critical to conduct translational RT researches with the technologies and
procedures analogous to those applied in clinical RT practice so that the research methods and results are
clinically relevant and can be effectively translated to clinical studies and applications. The goal of this project
is to establish practical and advanced PET/CT image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) capability for
translational RT researches. The significance and impact of this project are very clear: it will overcome a critical
technical obstacle to transform the current practice of RT research that is almost solely relied on anatomic CT
images to the one guided by functional images with the knowledge of actual tumor biological status and
function. The success of this project is expected to have lasting impact to improving and accelerating the
translational RT research and profound benefits to enhancing the cancer treatment. The research aims to
develop an advanced animal PET and integrate it with an existing micro-CT/RT, evaluate and improve the
performance through experiments of phantom imaging and system modeling, and conduct pilot animal studies
to test the capability PET/CT image-guided translational radiation oncology applications. The newly developed
PET detector technologies will be applied to overcome technical challenges to achieve high sensitivity (23%)
and high, uniform resolution (1 mm) required by the quantitative imaging of small size tumor for RT studies.
The novel imaging technology to be developed by this project should also be practical so that it can be adopted
for other micro-CT/RT systems without fundamental technical difficulties.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10105401
- **Project number:** 3R01EB019438-04S1
- **Recipient organization:** UT SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** YIPING SHAO
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $75,780
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2016-05-01 → 2021-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10105401

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10105401, Advanced micro-PET/CT/RT System for Translational Radiation Oncology Applications (3R01EB019438-04S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10105401. Licensed CC0.

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