Multimodality Molecular Imaging

Molecular imaging visualizes, characterizes, and measures biological processes at the molecular and cellular levels in vivo. In general, molecular imaging modalities include bioluminescence imaging, fluorescence imaging, targeted ultrasound imaging, photoacoustic imaging, SPECT, PET and molecular MRI. Compared to imaging with single modality, multimodality molecular imaging yields complementary information and offers synergistic advantages. For example, PET/CT and PET/MRI have been development to simultaneously provide us physiological and anatomic information of diseases, thus render physicians to better diagnose and treat diseases. Multimodality molecular imaging probes have also been extensive explored in the research community. Combining with imaging agents that are capable of multimodal detectability, multimodality imaging can help us to achieve comprehensive understandings diseases.

This Frontiers Research Topic will focus on current development of multimodal functionality in the field of molecular imaging. Researches in both multimodal contrast agents and instrumentation are welcomed. We encourage authors to submit research papers and reviews describing novel multimodal molecular probes and multimodal imaging systems and their imaging applications.