After the genome era, the 21st century will be the age of the biology of the systems. Indeed the systems of acquisition and treatment of biological data allow the appropriate modelling of in vivo interactions at different levels, cells, tissues, organisms.


Experimentally, the animal models are considered an essential tool for both the fundamental biological research and the development of novel drugs that are often derived from the most recent biological acquisitions. These models are now a key stage between the high through-put screening of candidate drugs at molecular or cellular level and the final validation of these molecules during the different phases of the clinical studies. The complexity and the cost of these animal models and the legitimate aspiration to reduce the use of laboratory animals ask for the development of non-invasive research techniques. In the last few years, the improvements in the medical imaging technology have favoured the development of small animal imaging systems in conditions comparable to those previously reserved to patients. Indeed, the imaging of anesthetised living animals allows the realisation of kinetics investigations of the studied phenomenon (tumour development and analysis of cancer treatments) for the duration of few hours to several weeks. This technique offers an important qualitative gain because, during the entire experiment, each animal is its own control and also a quantitative gain, because kinetics studies in living animals guarantee a considerable reduction in the number of animals needed to obtain the results. more informations		Partners La région Languedoc-Roussillon Montpellier Rio Imaging Réseau des Animaleries de Montpellier