Dr. Adam de la Zerda's current research is in the molecular imaging technologies for studying cancer biology in vivo. Dr. de la Zerda’s research interests span the broad field of Molecular Imaging.

The de la Zerda Group aims to build imaging instrumentation and chemical tools that can visualize the complex behavior of biomolecules in living subjects. The expression patterns of many biomolecules (e.g., signaling factors and posttranslational modifications) changes in time, space and local environments. Understanding these changes in the context of living tissues may give rise to new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, and can further reveal new molecular mechanisms not otherwise visible in traditional biochemical studies. The lab builds optical imaging instrumentation to visualize these complex behaviors in cancer and ophthalmic disease animal models. Their research efforts span both basic science and clinically translatable work.