Molecular Imaging: From Bench to Clinic

Advances in molecular biology and new developments in imaging, engineering, and novel contrast agents position molecular imaging to play a major role in disease management. This current issue mainly covers ultrasound techniques and radionuclide imaging techniques, and both preclinical research on animal models and clinical studies on cancer patients are presented herein. Molecular imaging has demonstrated its potential in characterizing disease models in small animal preclinical studies. In the clinical setting, many patients have the potential to benefit from these new and quantitative imaging techniques providing improved disease characterization, therapeutic monitoring, and objective prognostic criteria. To realize the full potential of molecular imaging, chemists, molecular biologist, and biomedical engineers will need to work closely with clinicians to translate molecular imaging techniques into clinical applications, ultimately providing improved disease diagnosis, treatment monitoring, and noninvasive prognostic imaging for patients.