A variety of cutting-edge imaging techniques, including their use for best practice, are addressed in this book. The book also provides examples of results found in both pre-clinical and clinical studies. This comprehensive text covers the entire spectrum of in vivo imaging for oncology. It will aide clinicians at all levels in keeping up with the most cutting-edge techniques.

This monograph examines the contribution of imaging modalities to the stages of drug discovery and development, from early target validation to their use in clinical development programs. Chapters are devoted to the description of the drug discovery process, to the various imaging modalities preclinically and clinically, to applications of imaging during the optimization of a lead compound, addressing issues such as bioavailability and efficacy, and during drug safety evaluation.

Drug development today needs to balance agility, speed, and risk in defining probability of success for molecules, mechanisms, and therapeutic concepts. New techniques such as fMRI promise to be part of a sequence that could transform drug development. Although numerous review articles exist that discuss the use of imaging in drug development, no one source is available that combines the various techniques and includes a discussion of disease mapping. Imaging in CNS Drug Discovery and Development, Implications for Disease and Therapy will serve to distill the most salient developments in the use of imaging in drug development and disease mapping. It will launch evolving concepts that integrate new imaging technologies and paradigms with molecular medicine and molecular profiling ("monics") as well as consider the ethical issues that arise as a result of disease or state diagnosis and the use of imaging in the public eye.

This review volume integrates the advances in cancer biology, molecular imaging techniques and imaging probes for visualization and quantitative measurement of anatomical, functional, and molecular profiles of cancer. The volume also presents a comprehensive summary of the state-of-the-art technology in molecular imaging probe design and applications in radionuclide (PET and SPECT), magnetic resonance (MR), optical (fluorescence, Raman, photoacoustic), ultrasound, CT, and multimodality imaging. Bringing together the fundamentals of molecular imaging, and the basic principles of each molecular imaging modality in this volume, readers' understanding in this field is further enhanced. With a strong emphasis on the chemistry of the design of appropriate molecular imaging probes for early cancer detection, therapy-response monitoring, and anti-cancer drug development, the process of translating novel cancer imaging probes from bench to bedside is extensively discussed.

The discovery and development of a biological active molecule with therapeutic properties is an ever increasing complex task, highly unpredictable at the early stages and marked, in the end, by high rates of failure. As a consequence, the overall process leading to the production of a successful drug is very costly. The improvement of the net outcome in drug discovery and development would require, amongst other important factors, a good understanding of the molecular events that characterize the disease or pathology in order to better identify likely targets of interest, to optimize the interaction of an active agent (small molecule or macromolecule of natural or synthetic origin) with those targets, and to facilitate the study of the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and toxicity of an active agent in suitable models and in human subjects. The objective of this Research Topic is to highlight new developments and applications of imaging techniques with the objective of performing pharmacological studies in vivo, in animal models and in humans. In the domain of drug discovery, the pharmacological and biomedical questions constitute the center of attention. In this sense, it is fundamental to keep in mind the strengths and limitations of each analytical or imaging technique. At the end, the judicious application of the technique with the aim of supporting the search for answers to manifold questions arising during a long and painstaking path provides a continuous role for imaging within the complex area of drug discovery and development.

The volume aim to be a comprehensive overview of the drug and biologic development process that is often called “the valley of death” (pre-IND through approval) where high costs of studies and high rates of product failure are part of the drug development landscape. Imaging tools can serve in this period by adding high value data, the images and the kinetic information they can provide, and cost-effective development alternative tools which potentially improve pivotal study designs. Imaging may identify safety issues early such as unwanted organ or tissue distributions, and then can serve advanced development with added certainty of a drug or biologic’s success to senior corporate management and investors. There are numerous textbooks, reference texts and treatises on medical imaging technologies, teaching tools on medical cases and physics books on the science of detector and computer interface systems. Rarely, in each of these are examples of medical imaging protocols and animal models of disease i.e. a text on methodology in drug development is currently unavailable.