2023

Customizable optical tissue phantom platform for characterization of fluorescence imaging device sensitivity
1030 639 DaCosta Lab

Our recent paper, “Customizable optical tissue phantom platform for characterization of fluorescence imaging device sensitivity,” was published in the Journal of Biomedical Optics (August 2023). Optical tissue phantoms serve as inanimate and stable reference materials used to calibrate, characterize, standardize, and test biomedical imaging instruments. Although various types of solid tissue phantoms have been described in the literature, current phantom models are limited in that they do not have a depth feature that can be adjusted in real-time, they cannot be adapted to other applications, and their fabrication can be laborious and costly. Our goal was to develop an optical…

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Quantitative Intravital Imaging for Real-time Monitoring of Pancreatic Tumor Cell Hypoxia and Stroma in an Orthotopic Mouse Model
400 506 DaCosta Lab

Our recent publication, “Quantitative Intravital Imaging for Real-time Monitoring of Pancreatic Tumor Cell Hypoxia and Stroma in an Orthotopic Mouse Model” was chosen to be the cover of Science Advances! Pancreatic cancer is a lethal disease with few successful treatment options. Recent evidence demonstrates that tumor hypoxia promotes pancreatic tumor invasion, metastasis, and therapy resistance. However, little is known about the complex relationship between hypoxia and the pancreatic tumor microenvironment (TME). In this study, we developed a novel intravital fluorescence microscopy platform with an orthotopic mouse model of pancreatic cancer to study tumor cell hypoxia within the TME in vivo,…

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Exploring the merits of research performance measures that comply with the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment and strategies to overcome barriers of adoption: qualitative interviews with administrators and researchers
225 225 DaCosta Lab

An advisory group at UHN applied an evidence- and consensus-based process to derive measures from published research, and national and international best practices, then engaged researchers and research leaders across all of the institutes through a two-round Delphi survey.  This approach identified measures that reflect the relevance of the research program, funding, innovative outputs, publications, collaboration, recognition, and challenges to research productivity. The group also examined current assessment rubrics at the institutes for these measures to identify gaps and areas for improvement. The resulting publication: “Exploring the merits of research performance measures that comply with the San Francisco Declaration on…

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DORA-compliant measures of research quality and impact to assess the performance of researchers in biomedical institutions: Review of published research, international best practice and Delphi survey
225 225 DaCosta Lab

Shortly before the pandemic, the research institutes at UHN signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)—a set of principles aimed at enhancing and modernizing research assessment. DORA promotes the evaluation of the quality and impact of research, and the elimination of using journal-based metrics (e.g., Journal Impact Factor) for decisions related to hiring, appointment, annual review, and promotion. An advisory group at UHN developed measures by which to report and assess research activity, outputs, and impact in a recent publication, “DORA-compliant measures of research quality and impact to assess the performance of researchers in biomedical institutions: Review of published…

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