High-resolution volumetric imaging of metabolic activity in tissues and its application to tumor metabolism

Imaging metabolic activity (e.g., synthesis of new macromolecules) in tissues with single-cell resolution and deep depth penetration is highly desirable to unraveling the mechanistic basis of many biological processes in health and disease such as tumor. However, the prevalent techniques such as MRI, mass spectroscopy and fluorescence microscopy all exhibit inherent limitations towards this goal. This proposal develops a new powerful optical microscopy platform, enabling in situ high-resolution volumetric imaging of metabolic activity in animal tissues. 1