The UCLA Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Prostate Cancer awarded Dr. William Hsu, Associate Professor of Radiological Sciences and Director of the Integrated Diagnostics(IDx) Shared Resource, $50,000 for his interdisciplinary project titled "Computational Framework for Discovering and Validating Imaging Endotypes to Predict Clinically Significant Prostate Cancer Aggressiveness”. The project, led by Dr. Hsu, includes collaboration with Holden Wu, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Radiological Sciences, Steven Raman, M.D., Professor of Radiological Sciences, Paul Boutros, Professor of Human Genetics, and Huihui Ye, Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine.
While the multiparametric (mp) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has made detecting clinically significant prostate cancer (csPCa) more precise, the association between the aggressive molecular hallmarks and the characteristics of csPCa visibility on mpMRI remains unknown. The overarching objective of this Development Research Program Award is to discover imaging endotypes that correlate with aggressiveness among cases with csPCa by jointly analyzing clinical, radiologic, pathologic, and genomic data.
This project has two specific goals: (1) to identify imaging endotypes from clinical in vivo and novel research ex vivo mpMRI that are associated with csPCa aggressiveness; and (2) to establish a computational framework for the joint analysis of clinical, radiologic, pathologic, and genomic data to discover imaging endotypes. Successful completion of the study will provide the foundation for further development and validation of novel imaging endotypes to diagnose csPCa and identify patients who are at higher risk of aggressive disease.
In addition to funding from the UCLA SPORE in Prostate Cancer, this project is made possible by the Integrated Diagnostics Program, a joint initiative between the Department of Radiological Sciences and Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
