If valid research depends on removing as many variables as possible, investigators in the VCU School of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology are producing even more reliable results these days.

That’s because a new piece of equipment, the small animal IVIS Imaging System, allows them to monitor gene evolution hourly or daily. Housed in the lab of Pin-Lan Li, M.D., Ph.D., the IVIS Imaging System is revealing the real-time expression of exogenous genes transfected into rat kidneys using luciferase as a reporter gene.

Li’s group is evaluating the changes and functions of genes that have been introduced into rat kidneys using a light-producing enzyme to make the alterations show up in animal organs or cells. The group is studying rat kidney genes for a variety of complex scenarios, in particular, their role in the development of high blood pressure and end-stage kidney disease, and the IVIS Imaging System is making it more precise, more accurate and more efficient.

This translates to more reliable data that’s also used extensively in research areas such as cancer, diabetes, drug metabolism, heart disease and stroke.

The IVIS Imaging System 200 Series is a 2007 HEETF-funded instrument and, as department Chair Billy Martin, Ph.D., says, helps keep VCU on the cutting edge.

“Technology is moving so quickly, to stay ahead is challenging but critical to attracting faculty, students and for future grants,” Martin says. “HEETF plays an enormously important role in that endeavor.”

Because strong data bolsters additional grants, both Martin and Li are optimistic that the preliminary research from the new instrument will aid in future grant proposals. After just five months of using the IVIS Imaging System, the department was awarded a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

“That came about partially as a direct result of this equipment,” says Li. “We have every reason to expect more [funding] from the research we are seeing here.”

In explaining how the lab is using the imaging system, one of Li’s primary investigators, assistant professor Ningjun Li, M.D., describes why the new IVIS-inspired process is so helpful.

In essence, because it is able to evaluate an organism in vivo (literally, “in life” or a living organism), the IVIS Imaging System can record cellular levels and genetic activity seamlessly. Researchers can record gene expression and function at different time points in the same animals. Previously, the same process required a number of interruptions as well as a number of animals, which produced unavoidable variations in data.

Though other technology can assess changes in living tissue, their instruments are traditionally space- (and budget-) invasive and complex. Compared with magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography machines, which can cost more than $1 million, the IVIS Imaging System’s $300,000 is a bargain. Additionally, because the system gauges changes on the molecular level without the use of hazardous materials, its resulting research is potentially more advantageous and safe.

“When we can detect molecular activity, we are seeing changes much earlier,” explains Ningjun Li. “With this piece of equipment, we can follow the disease from its onset.”

Because it can monitor living organisms, the IVIS Imaging System is more cost- and time-efficient as well, he adds. The old method’s preparation for gene detections, alone, might take two or three days, while this one takes about 20 minutes.

Martin points out a final advantage of an instrument with such sensitivity and exactness: “It is also a very important verification of what Dr. Li’s group has been doing.”

Pin-Lan Li’s investigators have, in fact, received numerous professional accolades for their ongoing research projects. In January 2007, Ningjun Li’s research was published in Hypertension, a highly prestigious scientific journal of the American Heart Association, one of many publications that recognized their innovation.

“With better equipment we see stronger data,” says Martin. “And that helps with everything from retaining and attracting the best faculty and students to securing funds for more research. It’s very important.”