I. Profile
Demonstration Collaborative Innovation Center for Molecular and Functional Imaging (herein after referred to as “Center”), constructed towards leading industries and strategic emerging industries, integrates scientific research resources of universities and institutes, including Sun Yat-sen University, Tianjin University, Shandong University, Weifang Medical University, Shandong Langrun Medical System Co., Ltd. and Shandong Aoxin Medical Technology Co., Ltd. The Center, which is demand-oriented, follows major strategic deployments of transformation of new and old kinetic energy of Shandong province has made contributions for economic and social development in promoting the development of regional and emerging industries, scientific frontier exploration and double first-class construction. The Center focuses on politics, industry, education, research, medicine, and application and builds a collaborative innovation model of adheres to a new collaborative innovation model of schools (research institutes)-affiliated hospitals-research and development enterprises. The Center aims at Cutting-edge scientific issues on molecular and functional imaging and accelerates the transformation of scientific research results. Now it has formed a collaborative development model of government- industry-education-research-medicine-application between universities and between universities and enterprises. In November 2019, in the performance appraisal of the Collaborative Innovation Center of Institutions of Higher Education in Shandong Province, various indicators and tasks were completed, and has been rated as excellent level by the on-site inspection and evaluation expert team. In 2020, the Center was approved as a Demonstration Collaborative Innovation Center for Molecular and Functional Imaging among Institutions of Higher Education in Shandong Province.
II. The Team
There are 76 full-time and part-time staff in the Center, including one chief expert from universities in Shandong Province, one from the “National Thousand Talents Program”, one from the “National Ten Thousand Talents Program”, eight Taishan Scholars, two young and middle-aged experts with outstanding contributions in Shandong Province and one academician of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The Center, developing rapidly in the field of molecular imaging research has built an advanced 7.0T MR imaging research platform for small living animals, a multispectral tomographic photoacoustic scanning system for small animals and a new target analysis platform for major diseases. The Center is mainly responsible for digging the direction of collaborative innovation and actively promoting the construction of collaborative innovation teams and the opening and sharing of various resources. Sun Yat-sen University uses its experience in the discovery and verification of new targets to quickly discover new targets and develop new molecular imaging probes. Tianjin University builds new high-efficiency information processing theories, methods and key application technologies for multi-source image information analysis. Shandong University conducts molecular probe synthesis and construction. Weifang Medical University conducts research on neurological diseases and malignant tumor imageomics feature set analysis, different disease classifications and treatment follow-up plans. Shandong Longrun Medical System Co., Ltd. taking advantage of functional imaging technology, develops supporting cognitive functional imaging auxiliary equipment and establishes brain imaging stimulation presentation system and data analysis system, as well as various image processing systems. Shandong Aoxin Medical Technology Co., Ltd. is mainly engaged in the research and development of specialized MRI machines, including R&D, design and production of superconducting magnets and gradient coils, cooperative development of radio frequency coils, and cooperative development of spectrometers and imaging software.
III. Academic Achievements
In accordance with the overall framework of one center and five platforms, the Center has conducted in-depth molecular imaging studies, including the research and development of angiogenesis-related target drugs, the mechanism of anti-tumor angiogenesis, and the study of specific molecular probes for chest and abdomen tumors, achieving certain results. In recent years, 18 national-level projects and 15 provincial and ministerial-level projects have been approved, with a total research funding of RMB 49.8 million yuan. Besides, more than 200 SCI papers has been published and six scientific research awards at or above the provincial and ministerial level was received. The Center hosted Qilu International Forum on Molecular Imaging for 9 consecutive years, during which, it also organized the Taishan Academic Forum—Clinical Application and New Progress of Molecular Imaging, the Special Branch of the Molecular Imaging Group of Radiology Annual Meeting by Chinese Medical Association, and the 6th National Molecular Imaging Academic Annual Meeting by the Chinese Medical Association and other high-level academic conferences.
IV. Infrastructure
7.0T MR imager for small living animals
There are 7.0T MR imager for small living animals, 3.0T MR, 1.5T MR, dual-source CT, PET-CT, DSA, multispectral tomography photoacoustic scanning system for small animals, brain function audiovisual stimulation system, real-time functional magnetic resonance neurofeedback system, PACS image processing workstation, MRI performance testing phantom, CT performance testing Phantom, CT head dose phantom and body dose phantom, QA detection box, X, γ-ray dosimeter, CD/DR digital multi-function image detection phantom, fluorophotometer, ultraviolet-visible-fluorescence microplate reader, Nanometer particle size, Zeta potential and absolute molecular weight analyzer, etc. The equipment is worth more than RMB 18.5 million yuan.
