CTSC:TTIC.102808

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Action Items (details below)

Harvard Translational Imaging Consortium Meeting Minutes October 28, 2008

In Attendance:

• Randy Gollub
• Carolyn Zyloney
• Gordon Harris
• Bob Lenkinski
• Bruce Rosen
• Annick D. Van den Abbeele
• Jeff Yap
• Laura Alice
• Neil Rofsky
• Sarah McMordie
• Bill Hanlon
• Gordon Williams

1. Future Educational Programs

• The Imaging Consortium proposed several courses for 2009
  • Annick has agreed to host a workshop on tumor metrics in the first quarter of 2009.
  • Greg Sorenson has been invited to give a lecture on cardiovascular imaging
  • Ellen Grant has been asked to give a workshop on general neuroimaging
• The CTSC has a system in place that will make scheduling a venue for the educational offerings simple
• Neil brought up the question of whether and how to use the educational offerings to educate its user community about the CTSC and its educational service.

2. Consultation Service

• The image at the top of the consultation web-page will scroll through several pictures.
  • The Imaging Group is requested to submit any ideas for these pictures in the next several days.

3. Imaging Program at Harvard and MIT

• Randy Buckner is the interim representative for Harvard FAS in the Imaging Consortium and Randy Gollub is the official liaison between Harvard and the Imaging Consortium
• John Gabrieli heads the imaging services at MIT.
• Randy Gollub met with Randy Buckner from Harvard and John Gabrieli from MIT to discuss their clinical translational imaging needs and consultation service needs at their institutions

4. Physiological Monitoring Equipment for Imaging Research

• Both Harvard and MIT have requested logistic and technical support for physiological monitoring at their imaging acquisition sites, per requests from the user community.
• Other institutions within the CTSC may also have a need for physiological monitoring equiptment,,particularly BIDMC.
• Randy has obtained a quote to set up physiological monitoring equiptment from AD Instruments for approximately $25K per site
  • This physiological equiptment is for research imaging and is unlikely to fit the needs of clinical imaging projects
  • Consortium members are invited to suggest other physiological monitoring systems that the Imaging Consortium can purchase
• GCRC resources website

5. Imaging Information and Acquisition Liaison Job

• The title Navigator is reserved for the official CTSC Central Navigators and cannot be used by the Imaging Consortium to refer to the Imaging Triage Consultant/Imaging Information and Acquisition Liaison
  • Consortium members have been requested to submit a new title for this job opportunity. There may be a prize for the best job title.
• Randy Gollub will screen all job candidates and contact their references. Information on the job candidates will be circulated to the consortium at weekly meetings and electronically. When several suitable candidates have been found, several members of Imaging Consortium have agreed to help give interviews.
• The Imaging Liaison will be the point of contact with the Radiology Department and will maintain a list of possible consultants and their areas of expertise.
  • The Imaging Group will request assistance from CTSC IT Central to set up a web-based search device to retrieve a list consultants with a particular expertise
  • The successful job candidate will acquire knowledge about these consultants and develop relationships with the members of the Radiology departments and the imaging community.
• The Radiology Division Heads meetings will be postponed until a liaison is hired, so that the liaison can attend these meetings and meet the members of the Radiology departments.

6. Medical Image Analysis Services

• Clinical translational investigators may wish to purchase analysis services
• Several medical image analysis services already exist but with a limited scope
  • The TIMC offers its imaging analysis services for cancer clinical trials to all DF/HCC and non-DF/HCC oncology PIs on a fee-for-service basis.
  • The Center for Morphometric Analysis at MGH offers analysis services for structural MRI imaging.
  • Bruce Fischel's Computational Analysis service at MGH also offers structural MRI analysis services.
• The Imaging Consoritum is considering the possibility of setting up a medical imaging analysis service
  • The Consortium will inquire as to whether CTSC Central can help support this service
  • If this service is developed, there will likely be a fee for investigators requesting image analysis support
  • The TIMC can provide the business model for this service
  • There are multiple types of medical image analysis needs, including PET, fMRI, FDG functional activation, and other imaging modalities.
• John Gabrieli at MIT has mentioned that he is interested in an image analysis service
  • The proposal for developing a medical image analysis service will be the topic of a future Imaging Consortium meeting
  • The Imaging Consortium has invited John Gabrieli to attend this meeting

7. PowerPoint Presentation for Radiology Divisions Heads Meetings

• The Consortium will continue to work on these slides at future meetings

8. Imaging Data Storage

• The Imaging Consortium will not purchase a large data storage repository in the first year of the CTSC as storage requirements will likely be small in the beginning.
• Imaging data storage will likely become a large expense in the upcoming years