Combined technology for measuring skin diseases with molecular imaging

In vivo imaging provides noninvasive insight into living organisms and can improve our understanding of the complex spatial-temporal interplay of organic structures. Molecular imaging, which is a type of in vivo imaging, is a rapidly emerging technology that combines the multidisciplinary fields of molecular cell biology, chemistry, pharmacology, medicine, genetics, biomedical engineering, and physics, with multiple image capture techniques. Molecular imaging uses the imaging signals derived from specific cellular and molecular events. However, conventional in vivo imaging uses imaging signals produced by nonspecific physicochemical interactions. In the near future, molecular imaging may lead to the achievement of several important goals: (1) development of noninvasive in vivo imaging of gene expression and protein-protein interactions; (2) monitoring of multiple molecular events simultaneously; (3) trafficking and targeting of stem cells; (4) assessment of the effects of drugs on disease progression at the molecular level; and (5) rapid, repeated, and quantitative in vivo imaging of the same individuals overtime. Molecular imaging consists of optical molecular imaging, radionuclear molecular imaging, and magnetic resonance molecular imaging. Each type of molecular imaging has advantages and disadvantages. This chapter will briefly introduce the practical applications of each molecular imaging technique.