WMIC 2008’s 3 key themes (bench to bedside is one!)

The title of the opening keynote address at the 2008 World Molecular Imaging Congress (the Society for Molecular Imaging’s annual meeting), “Advances in Molecular Imaging from bench to bedside,” articulated one of three key themes of the meeting: Translation of preclinical work to clinical.


The title of the opening keynote address at the 2008 World Molecular Imaging Congress (the Society for Molecular Imaging’s annual meeting), “Advances in Molecular Imaging from bench to bedside,” articulated one of three key themes of the meeting: Translation of preclinical work to clinical.

“The promise of molecular imaging is to provide an uninterrupted flow of technologies from in-vitro microscopy, in-vivo animal imaging to clinical phenotyping of disease and image guided therapeutic interventions,” said keynote speaker Dr. Markus Schwaiger, Nuklearmedizinische Klinik und Poliklinik (Munich, Germany). Dr. Schwaiger discussed the advancement of molecular imaging, including probe development, which he said has become quite sophisticated as both a diagnostic tool and a method of therapy selection, “especially in the area of optical imaging,” he said. And indeed, probe development was another key theme of the conference.

Then Dr. Schwaiger went on to discuss the third major topics of the conference: multimodal imaging. “Optical imaging is now limited,” he said, but said that situation is changing. He pointed to multispectral optoacoustic tomography as an example, and encouraged the audience to remember a time when PET was the only game in town. “Today you cannot even buy a PET-only system,” he said, noting that PET/CT is now standard.