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Objective
Dr. Bacskai's laboratory
uses sophisticated optical techniques to address fundamental questions in
Alzheimer's disease research. Using the imaging technique mulitphoton
micrsocopy, the senile plaques of Alzheimer's disease can be detected in the
brains of living transgenic mice, and characterized with chronic imaging.
This detection platform was used to characterize a therapeutic approach to
clearing the senile plaques based on immunotherapy, as well as to
characterize novel amyloid-targeting ligands in preclinical development for
PET imaging in humans. Current research is aimed at optimizing anti-amyloid-
therapeutic approaches, and imaging the anatomy and physiology of specific
cell types in the brain before and after treatment. Development of novel
optical techniques is ongoing, and includes methods to measure
protein-protein interactions using fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy
(FLIM), and non-invasive approaches to amyloid imaging in intact animals.
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