About

A Message from Our Director

Arion Chatziaounnou

Headshot of Arion Chatziioannou, PhD.

Welcome to the Crump Institute!

The track record of our faculty, students and staff illustrates the magic of mixing talented individuals in engineering, mathematical, physical, biological and medical sciences, with a passion to create new science and technologies to achieve it. This began when Prof Michael Phelps and his colleagues invented the Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner to provide a unique means to look inside the human body to watch the living chemistry and biology of cells and organ systems, providing new insights into the biology of disease. PET imaging has grown to become a mainstay in the care of patients with cancer, Alzheimer's and other diseases throughout the world. Crump Institute faculty invented the “microPET scanner” for mice to link laboratory sciences and clinical PET. From events like these, our faculty took the lead in developing a new field of molecular imaging with various imaging technologies integrated with basic and clinical scientists to translate laboratory biology into the study of biology within the living subject.

Throughout the life of our institute, we have adapted the course of our mission. Through recruitment of faculty, the Crump Institute has built a new foundation of science and technology with program areas in:

  1. A systems approach to understanding the transitions of cells from normal biology to that of disease, and the interaction of microorganisms with humans.
  2. Technology platforms for in vitro (tissue, cells and blood) and in vivo (imaging) molecular diagnostics as a measurement science in research and patient care.
  3. Molecular imaging probe discovery process for small molecules, antibody fragments and peptides.
  4. Technology platforms for synthesizing and labeling diverse arrays of molecular imaging probes.
  5. Technologies for in vitro imaging measurements of biochemistry on microfluidics chips and preclinical PET imaging for high-throughput screening of imaging probes.
  6. A pathway for commercialization of science and technology.

Our Vision

Advances in genomics and proteomics have provided molecular and cell biology with an ever-expanding understanding of the “nuts and bolts” of life — the genes and proteins that encode and orchestrate the activities of cells, tissues and organ systems of living organisms. These molecules construct and regulate normal metabolism, communication, repair and growth — all the functions essential for life and health. In parallel, laboratory studies have revealed many of the underlying mechanisms of disease — mutated genes and altered proteins that hijack normal biological processes to promote malignant transformation in cancer; and inflammatory responses that contribute to cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Now the challenge is to develop technologies and methods to allow us to continually apply emerging knowledge from the research laboratory to the living organism, including patients, allowing us to ask the same questions, query the same molecules.

What do we need to image?
What do we need to measure?
How do we image and measure it?

The Crump Institute develops innovative technology to decipher the transformations from health to disease at the molecular level. We focus on creating new approaches to observe, measure, and understand molecular processes in cells, tissues and the organ systems throughout the living organism, through molecular diagnostics — measurement of critical biological events within the body by analyzing cells, tissues and blood, and by molecular imaging — taking “pictures” of the living chemistry of cells in the body in health and disease. Our ultimate objective is to provide medicine with new science and technologies to judge the state of health, and identify the early transitions to disease for the development and use of new therapies as part of the new era in molecular medicine.

Our History

The Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging is named in honor of Ralph and Marjorie Crump —two of UCLA's distinguished alums — along with their children and their spouses. The Institute has benefitted from the support of this exceptional family who have provided critical funding to establish and maintain the vitality of the Institute. The photograph shows Ralph and Marjorie with their family — both from genetic lineage and by adoption of the faculty and students of the Crump Institute. The Institute in 2009 moved into their new, state-of-the-art research facilities located in the California NanoSystems Institute Building (CNSI).

Graduates of the UCLA School of Engineering, Ralph and Marjorie envisioned establishing an academic research center which would bring together the field of Biomedical Engineering and the School of Medicine. What started out with a humble beginning has evolved into a vibrant and dynamic research entity that has 9 faculty members, as well as graduate students, post docs, and staff, engaged in cutting-edge research in the fields of in vitro and in vivo (imaging) molecular diagnostics, microfluidics, systems biology, and nanotechnologies. The members of the Crump faculty look forward to the years ahead as their discoveries and inventions lead to a better understanding of the biology of disease and technologies for its diagnosis and therapeutic management.