Project 1

DEVELOPMENT OF A PHANTOM WITH INTEGRATED TUMOR SAMPLES FOR AUTOMATED ANALYSIS IN IMAGING PROCEDURES

New small animal irradiation facilities have developed rapidly in recent years. These facilities enable high-precision irradiation in addition to imaging techniques such as micro-CT imaging and bioluminescence. Physical phantoms are needed to ensure quality assurance at these facilities. For this purpose, additive manufacturing offers the possibility to produce phantoms with a high degree of geometric freedom in a cost-effective, modular and individual way.
The aim of this project is to develop and deploy anatomical small animal phantoms with tumor samples inserted, so that they are available in large numbers and continuously over the course of treatment to generate standardized data. For this purpose, an additively manufactured mouse phantom will be further developed to integrate living cells and vital tumor material.
The project will investigate methods and procedures for integrating biological tumor tissue into physical small animal phantoms. Through this development, a gain in knowledge regarding the diagnostics and therapeutic course of tumor diseases can be achieved using phantom-based replicas, and thus further animal experiments can be avoided in the future while still providing a realistic physical environment for the tissue samples.