Quantitative nuclear imaging in biology

Used initially and extensively for medical diagnosis, nuclear imaging has been progressively extended to other applications like molecular genetics, neurosciences and surgical aids. This review article covers new types of imaging apparatus resulting from this diversification. Far from being exhaustive, we limit ourselves to the three applications cited above, in which our research group has focused its interest. In an extensive first part, we describe three types of detectors dedicated to the three complementary areas of research in genetics at the molecular level: in situ hybridization, gene cartography and DNA sequencing. In addition, we discuss the current limits of these methods and the efforts that we propose to progress further. Then, after recalling some general aspects of in vivo micro-imaging, we present our new technical strategy to investigate in vivo cerebral mechanisms in rodents. Finally, we describe our current development of mini-cameras for assisting surgeons during operations.