Collaborative Research Center 1340

"Matrix in Vision" Collaborative Research Center (CRC 1340), funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), aims at using inflammation as a pathologic case in point to experimentally investigate how the different ECM components might be targeted for in vivo imaging. This will be done for a variety of clinically relevant inflammatory disease entities. The experimental methods to be used include ex vivo and in vivo examinations with imaging probes, biophysical mechanical test procedures, biochemical analysis, histology, as well as molecule- and element-specific microscopy.

The CRC 1340 combines biological molecular methods in radiology with new biophysical insights into the role of mechanical tissue parameters in the development of disease, thus enabling 1) the investigation of the interaction of molecular imaging probes with the ECM; 2) the investigation of new imaging approaches using various types of magnetic nanoparticles and gadolinium-based imaging probes; and 3) multiscale quantification of mechanical structural elements of the ECM, ranging from microscopic collagen and glycosaminoglycan networks to macroscopic mechanical parameters investigated by clinical diagnostic elastography.