Congratulations to Kyle Lafata, PhD, and Professors of Radiology Cristian Badea, PhD, and Paul Segars, PhD, who were awarded a $2.9 million MPI R01 grant by the NIH National Cancer Institute.
The project is titled "Development of a virtual preclinical CT platform for advanced imaging and theranostics in head and neck cancer," and runs from September 2025 to August 2029.
Resistance in head and neck cancer can limit the effectiveness of current treatments, highlighting the need for new approaches to improve outcomes. The interdisciplinary Duke team is addressing this challenge by combining photon-counting CT imaging, experimental mouse models and multiscale mathematical modeling to gain new insights into tumor behavior and therapy response.
"We're creating a digital twin of both the tumor-bearing mouse and the preclinical CT system – essentially an in silico replica of the entire experimental process," said Dr. Lafata. "This lets us test imaging and treatment strategies computationally before moving to the wet lab, creating a powerful bridge between theory and experiment."
The team will pair this platform with preclinical radiation biology studies to explore combination therapies. A key focus is testing barium nanoparticles with radiation and chemotherapy to investigate how they can disrupt tumor vasculature, enhance drug delivery and overcome treatment resistance.
"This project brings together computational modeling and hands-on biology in a way that hasn't been done before," added Dr. Lafata. "By first testing experimental strategies in a virtual environment, we can design smarter, more efficient preclinical experiments, potentially reducing the number of animals needed while accelerating the development of effective therapies for patients."