Cedars-Sinai team to develop non-invasive method for diagnosis of painful back condition

An interdisciplinary research team from Cedars-Sinai announced it has received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop the first imaging technique for identifying biomarkers that could indicate patients who have a painful, degenerative back condition.
The research team includes members of the Cedars-Sinai Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Regenerative Medicine Institute and Department of Surgery. The research itself expands on findings published previously in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, in which investigators developed imaging techniques via MRI to identify specific biomarkers that could potentially provide a noninvasive diagnostic approach to intervertebral disc degeneration.

The approach allowed investigators to determine patients’ origin of pain and monitor the progression of their condition, according to a press release.

“The goal of our institute is to develop and apply novel imaging techniques that translate to clinical significance,” Debiao Li, PhD, co-principal investigator on the NIH grant, director of the Biomedical Imaging Research Institute and co-author of the study, said in the press release. “This imaging technology may allow us to do just this. By mapping a patient’s lower spine region, we can identify the discs causing discomfort, which allows physicians to then treat accordingly.”

The goal of the imaging technique is to generate a stem cell-based therapeutic agent for those diagnosed with the degenerative condition.

“Our research team is interested in the role of stem cells in this disease and how we can utilize these cells to regenerate the disc and turn it back into a functional tissue,” Dan Gazit, PhD, co-principal investigator on the grant, said in the press release. “Using this novel imaging technique, we will be able to evaluate the effect of our future stem cell therapies on back pain.”