AN INTEGRATED IMAGE QUANTIFICATION SYSTEM FOR COLORECTAL CANCER RISK ASSESSMENT USING QUANTUM DOTS AND MOLECULAR PROFILING

Colorectal cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, is a disease for which there are no known biomarkers of risk that can be used for predicting and preventing the disease. Based on new knowledge of the molecular basis of colorectal cancer, we developed and validated a panel of biomarkers of risk that can be measured in rectal biopsies. The goal of this work is to develop an integrated detection and image analysis quantification system for measuring and applying these biomarkers in clinical research and care. More importantly, the new system can process biopsy images from both traditional and bionanotechnology quantum dot-based IHC, and through a combination of novel and automated image analysis and quantification algorithms, it will significantly reduce processing time by detecting multiple biomarkers simultaneously on the same histologic sections. Clinical application of this novel process of detecting and quantifying biomarkers, coupled with decision support from the analysis of a biomarker quantification database, is expected to open new frontiers in the field of colorectal cancer prognosis and treatment.