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BWH radiology can offer a complete portfolio of diagnostic and interventional imaging capabilities. This includes the majority of procedures that have a CPT code and a variety of experimental diagnostic and interventional capabilities.

Resources and Facilities: Radiology Research

Overview In terms of the major laboratories and equipment areas housed within the research areas of the Radiology Department, they are as follows:

I. General MRI Facilities II. MRI-Related Facilities: Center for Clinical Spectroscopy, Neuroimaging and fMRI Services, the Center for Pulmonary Functioning Imaging/Hyperpolarized MRI, and the Focused Ultrasound Surgery (FUS) Laboratory III. AMIGO—the Advanced Multimodality Image Guided Operating Suite (in development) IV. Optical Imaging Laboratory V. Nuclear Medicine/PET VI. Mass Spectrometry Imaging Laboratory VII. Surgical Planning Laboratory (SPL) VIII. CT/Tumor Ablation Program Facilities IX. Conjugate and Medicinal Chemistry Laboratory X. Radionuclide Therapy Laboratory XI. Physics Imaging Group XII. Decision Systems Group

The Radiology Department has a number of shared resources, including a research computer network based on Ethernet and running both DECnet and TCP/IP protocols on optical fiber and thick coaxial cables. On this network are: All clinical and research MR systems (10 systems); a General Electric (GE) single photon emission computer tomography (SPECT) system; two GE PET systems; and all digital X-ray systems. Digital image data from any of these systems can be sent over the research network.

The Radiology Department's networks are connected to the Longwood Medical Area Network that connects networks at five institutions affiliated with Harvard Medical School. This provides a gateway to the Harvard University network and the national and international wide area networks such as Bitnet, NSFnet, and the Internet. All computers are connected throughout the Department's Ethernet/TCP-IP network.

I. General MRI Facilities The MR Division has three clinical areas within the hospital campus: 1) the L1 level of the main hospital building; 2) the main “Pike”; 3) the Lee Bell Center for Breast Imaging; 4.) the LMRC Building (Longwood Medical Research Center at 221 Longwood Avenue); and 5.) the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center. All MR systems are fully supported with inpatient and outpatient facilities, nursing and technologist staff. A full-time clinical PhD MR Physicist provides clinical MRI protocol development, and QA and implementation support. Imaging results are interpreted at electronic reading stations over a clinical PACS with interconnectivity with advanced Radiology and Hospital Information Systems.

More on the MR facilities, by location, follows:

BWH Lower Level I: One 3T GE MRI, one 3T Siemens MRI, and one 1.5T GE MRI resides in this area for radiology research and clinical use. This area will be the site of liver/kidney cryotherapy and prostate biopsies until the AMIGO facility becomes available.

Lee Bell Center for Breast Imaging: One 3T Siemens MRI is located in this area, equipped with open breast coils with vacuum-assist biopsy targeting equipment. In early 2008, a breast system from Robin Medical with active tracking will be installed.

Ia. Screening Mammography Facilities: The Lee Bell Center for Breast Imaging is a 6,850 sq. ft. facility within the main building of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital that provides the hospital’s screening mammography. This area provides office and clinical space for the provision of mammography and other clinical/research services and contains a conference room with a white board in one of the radiology reading rooms.

Computer: The Center is equipped with a GE Centricity PACS (picture archiving communication software) system and has several PCs connected to the Hospital’s computer network that includes Internet access.

Equipment: The Center has 5 GE digital mammography units, 3 Philips ultrasound units, 1 Hologic stereotactic biopsy unit, 1 Siemens 3T MRI unit, and Hologic CAD (computer aided detection) software. This equipment allows for the provision of the following clinical services: screening and diagnostic digital mammography, breast ultrasound, magnetic resonance (MRI) of the breast, stereotactic percutaneous core biopsy, MRI-guided percutaneous core biopsy, ultrasound-guided percutaneous core biopsy, preoperative lesion localization prior to surgical biopsy, galactography (ductography), and cyst aspiration.

Hospital Main “Pike: Two 1.5T GE MRIs reside in this area for radiology research and clinical use. The systems are connected to the Ethernet, enabling transfer of images and raw data locally and over computer network systems. This center is the alternate area for breast biopsy for patients with contraindications for 3T MR imaging.

221 Longwood Advanced Imaging Center: The LMRC Advanced Imaging Center at 221 Longwood consists of offices for research staff, laboratories and two 3T GE MRI magnets (one long bore and one short bore) and one 1.5 T long bore GE MRI magnet for both clinical and research use. (In 2008, the 3T GE long bore MRI will be replaced by a Siemens 3T MRI system.) The 1.5T scanner is integrated with an MRI-compatible tracking system for probe and catheter tracking. One of the 3T scanners is equipped with a commercialized focused ultrasound system (FUS) system. The hospital also has its own in-house FUS system for animal experiments that can move among the magnets at the 221 Longwood Facility.

An MRI scanner at 221 Longwood

The Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center: This facility located in the Goldenson Building within the Harvard Medical School quad, with a URL at: http://www.neurodiscovery.harvard.edu/resources/mri.html), can be accessed by members of the Harvard medical community and affiliated hospitals. It houses a 4.7T Bruker Biospec Advanced multinuclear MRI system. The Bruker system comes with a choice of two sizes of shielded gradient sets, one large and one small set. The smaller 12 cm gradient insert delivers up to 25 G/cm, and is useful for studying rats and mice. Gradient switching times of 200 µs for both requested gradient sets enable the use of fast EPI techniques. The RF coils include receive-only surface coils for greater sensitivity over small volumes such as mice, while still providing homogeneous B1 excitation from the surrounding volume coil. Animal handling assemblies include an animal positioning table that attaches to the end of the magnet, with convenient mechanical manipulators to allow vertical and horizontal positioning within the bore. This table slides into the resonator and includes an animal holding assembly containing a stereotactic head holding device with ear and tooth supports, ECG leads, and an optical respiratory gating device. A Hewlett Packard network analyzer is available for tuning and matching coils. At this site, a radiofrequency coil laboratory is also available.

The Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center: Opening in early 2008, this facility will have a Siemens 3T MRI for use within radiology research and clinical uses.

II. MRI-Related Laboratories The following laboratories are closely linked to the MRI facilities.

IIa. Center for Clinical Spectroscopy

Laboratory and Clinical: The Center for Clinical Spectroscopy has four offices in the BWH campus and one the third floor at One Brigham Circle as well as shared laboratory space at the hospital’s pathology laboratory.

Computer: The Center shares the computer facilities of the main hospital along with the pathology areas.

Equipment: The 3T Siemens MRI at the Lee Bell Center for Breast Imaging, the Shapiro Center’s GE 3T, and two of the BWH GE 1.5 MRIs all have spectroscopy software functionality and organ-specific transmit and receive coils, such as ones for the brain, breast, pelvis, and the musculoskeletal system, including the spine. Additionally, the Center has relationships with the Dana Farber Cancer Center and the Massachusetts General Hospital with access to a 3T MRI, 7 T Siemens and 8.7 Tesla Bruker pathology MRI system for tissue specimens.

IIb. Neuroimaging and Functional (fMRI)

Laboratory/Office: Neuroimaging research is conducted using two 3T MRI scanners at the 221 Longwood Advanced Imaging Center. For animals, researchers use the 4.7 T Bruker Biospec Avance multinuclear MRI system. In addition, the MRI division of the BWH operates a schedule for the Department of Neurology to use the 1.5T GE Horizon LX Echospeed MR. All of the neurosurgical neuroimaging research division has immediate access to the clinical facilities needed to carry out the translational components of the work. There are four fully equipped neurosurgical operating rooms with neuronavigation systems, operating microscopes, and video recording capabilities, intraoperative electrocortical testing, and 128 channel EEG monitoring. In addition there are outpatient examination rooms for conducting interviews, neurological testing and counseling.

Part of BWH neuroimaging research is the fMRI Service, created in early 2006 to (1) expand functional imaging research activities at BWH by providing technical expertise and support to BWH investigators interested in conducting functional imaging research; and to (2) create a self-sustainable clinical infrastructure to serve various patient populations. The Service encompasses staff training, idea development, study design and execution, and data analysis suitable for both human and animal scans. These services are provided to a wide range of clinical and academic disciplines (e.g. Neurosurgery, Interventional Radiology, Neurology, Psychology, Psychiatry, Sleep Medicine, Rehabilitation Medicine, neurobiology, etc). The fMRI Service has two full-time staffpersons (technologist and MR physicist) and three part-time staffpersons to address various service needs in both the clinical and research settings. The service’s director, holding a PhD and MBA, leads its day-to-day operations in participation with a seven-member Steering Committee.

Computer: The neuroimaging research division uses two 1.5TB Linux RAID laboratory servers; one 3TB Linux RAID laboratory server; three Dell Latitude D800 laptops; two Dell Precision 360N workstations; one Dell 380 Precision Workstation; one Dell 390 Precision workstation; one Dell 4600 Dimension workstation; and five flat-panel computer monitors. Lab Software includes the custom in-house software known as 3D-Slicer, MatLab, Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) Brain Imaging Software, and E-prime, Py-EPL, and Presentation software for stimulus presentation.

Equipment: In addition to the GE SIGNA Horizon echo-speed system, the MR Division has the following resources to support stimulus presentation during functional imaging experiments:

• A CGI Pentium 200 PC with ATI 3D Pro Turbo PC2TV video card (NTSC S-video or composite video out), The Quasar WR7000FE LCD color monitor projector reversible video for screen back-projection (NTSC composite video in), • A National instruments AT-MIO-16E-10 I/O board, • A Pneumatic Foot pedal and transducer, and • Labview 4.0 software for synchronization.

IIc. Center for Pulmonary Functional Imaging/Hyperpolarized MRI

Laboratory: Approximately 400 sq. ft. at the 221 Longwood Avenue LMRC site is devoted to the Center that is expected to be fully operational by March 2008. By that time, the area expand will expand 400 sq. ft. as new office and lab space becomes available. Within the laboratory is equipment that the group uses to construct custom RF coils, including two network analyzers (one large fixed unit for the laboratory and one portable one that can be used in an MRI scanner), a supply of high voltage, high Q capacitors for constructing RF coils, and several oscilloscopes, signal generators and other electronic test equipment.

Office: One director has an office adjacent to the LMRC laboratory at 221 Longwood Ave, while the other director has an office at the Peter Bent Brigham building in BWH. An additional 1,200 sq. ft. of office space will become available in March 2008 at the Crosstown facility. When it opens, that facility, will house two graduate students and a postdoctoral fellow.

Computer: The Center directors and researchers have several computers in their offices and access to computers and printers within the BWH. These computers are all connected to a GB local network. In addition, the MRI Division’s computational resources are based on the very substantial infrastructure of the BWH's Surgical Planning Laboratory, known as the SPL, that provides a UNIX-based application environment, including high bandwidth access to large-scale file and computer servers. The SPL maintains the Division's research computer network.

Equipment: One director’s laboratory has a Flexivent ventilator that is used to ventilate animals.

The other director’s group has a subcontract to the University of New Hampshire (UNH) for a 129Xe polarizer that covers maintenance and operation of the polarizer by UNH personnel as well as a very substantive scientific collaboration. This polarizer is the only one of its kind, apart from newer models being developed at UNH. After initial alterations, it has been extraordinarily reliable and robust, typically producing 1-2 liters per hour at 30–50% polarization, depending on the quantity being produced. This is a factor of 20-fold higher in terms of polarization throughput than other 129Xe polarizers. This polarizer will remain part of the infrastructure and continue to be supported by the UNH/Xemed team. In addition, the UNH/Xemed team will be designing and building a new polarizer with substantially higher throughput and a smaller footprint. CPFI funding will provide support for maintenance of the new polarizer.

Other major equipment includes a: • Tecmag Apollo research spectrometer and 1KW broadband RF power amplifier, • Hewlett Packard DC power supply, capable of supplying 100A at up to 20V, and • Three-axis, high precision digital Gaussmeter.

IId. Focused Ultrasound Laboratory

Laboratory and Office: The Focused Ultrasound Laboratory (FUS) is located at the fifth floor of the LMRC at 221 Longwood Avenue within the BWH campus and includes laboratory and office space.

Computer: The FUS laboratory has also several high end PCs for image analysis, signal processing and numeric simulation studies. All of these computers as well as the transducer calibration and sonications system computers are networked to the hospital.

Equipment: One of the GE Signa Excite 1.5T systems is involved in the department’s focused ultrasound research. It is in the main hospital inpatient imaging area. This magnet, the first of its kind in the United States, arrived in February 2003 and has been the center of all clinical and research programs in MRI-guided FUS. This is the site of our ongoing uterine fibroid and breast fibroadenomas protocols as well as our ongoing brain tumor treatment trials that support patient and research activities.

The laboratory is equipped with an Acuson 128XP10 ultrasound imaging system with standard imaging transducers and an ATL Ultramark 9 ultrasound imaging system for research use.

Two MRI-guided focused ultrasound systems with MRI-compatible positioning and sonication systems are integrated with the SIGNA MR. They are: a commercial Exablate 2000 system for uterine fibroid and breast therapy, a 500-element phased-array prototype for the brain treatment trial and an in-house system for the testing of phased-array applicators.

The laboratory also has a fully integrated MRI-compatible ultrasound surgery system that can be used for MRI-guided experiments. This research system is identical to the clinical system except that the experimental transducers and phased-array systems can be used instead of the fixed focus system. The laboratory has theoretical models that can predict the ultrasound field distribution and the absorbed energy deposition in three-dimensional tissue volumes with irregularly shaped tissue interfaces. In addition, simple models used to simulate the ultrasound field in a homogenous medium are also available as are simulation programs for prediction of the temperature elevation generated by the ultrasound beams in the tissue.

Also housed within this facility are administrative support areas, scheduling rooms, reading rooms, darkrooms, waiting and nursing rooms, a crash area, and a physics and biological support area. The FUS laboratory has all of the required equipment for transducer and phased-array construction, matching, tuning and characterization, including a computerized beam plotting device, different calibrated hydrophones, thermistor and thermocouple probes for field measurements, an automated radiation force measurement system, a spectrum analyzer, and vector impedance meters. In addition, single or multi-sensor thermocouple manufacturing can be done in the laboratory. Three computerized high-resolution transducer-positioning devices with integrated sonication and temperature measurement equipment are also available.

Most of the basic equipment required for ultrasound laboratory experiments (including RF-amplifiers, frequency generators, oscilloscopes, voltmeters, hydrophones, transducers—both focused and planar—and a degasser) are available in the laboratory. We have facilities to cut the ultrasound transducer arrays (a diamond wire saw and a Dicing saw) and construct complete applicators. A new high-phase and amplitude resolution RF-amplifier system has been designed and two 256-channel amplifiers have been constructed. Finally, we have a 500-channel amplifier (Insightec, Inc.) and transducer system for developing non-invasive brain surgeries.

A number of different high-power ultrasound transducers and transducer arrays are available for tests and clinical treatments. These transducers range from interstitial needle applicators to intracavitary probes to external phased arrays.

The ultrasound laboratory’s electronic shop is also equipped with a considerable variety of electronic components and test equipment used to not only troubleshoot and repair components, but also to build customized equipment as needed. The ultrasound laboratory has two regular microscopes for histology evaluation and two surgery microscopes for microsurgeries. An MRI-compatible anesthesia gas delivery system is available as a core resource for animal experiments.

III. AMIGO Suite (Opening in 2009):

Laboratory and Clinical: The Advanced Multimodality Image Guided Operating Room (AMIGO) suite, opening in 2009, will be an integrated multimodality imaging system placed in the operating room environment to support percutaneous, endovascular open surgical, and thermal ablation (including focused ultrasound) procedures. The AMIGO will involve physicians, research scientists, engineers and technicians from the BWH and GE. In fact, approximately 100 FTE physicians, scientists and support staff from the BWH will be involved in the AMIGO, as well as a team of GE scientists, engineers and technicians.

Within the AMIGO will be a procedure room, MRI room, and PET/CT room that are modularly utilized based on the scheduled procedure. The room will be equipped with a surgical microscope, fluoro x-ray, sophisticated patient table, navigation system, and 3D ultrasound. It will also serve as a test bed for endoscopy-based and optical imaging.

Devices integrated within the AMIGO do not need to be all MRI compatible. That said, the AMIGO will have a system for ensuring that no non-MRI-compatible instruments will enter the MRI room.

The AMIGO’s “three-room solution” demands a means to move the patient safely among stations, while maintaining sterility. The surgical table enables motorized movement along tracks in the floor. The tabletop manually transitions from the surgical table to the MRI and PET/CT tables. MRI-compatible patient monitoring is integral to the tabletop utilizing wireless transmission to a remote monitor. Two MRI-compatible anesthesia machines will be used, thus, eliminating the need to move this cumbersome object along with the patient. Under consideration are the uses of radiofrequency identification of each instrument, a ferrous metal detecting portal, and machine vision.

Computer: Along with integrating high-field MRI, PET-CT, x-ray fluoroscope, and ultrasound, the AMIGO program leaders and its trainees are developing, using, and refining complementary technologies such as:

• 3D Slicer (http://slicer.spl.harvard.edu/) open source software for medical image analysis and visualization; • Computer systems that use 3D models for preoperative and intraoperative registration, planning, comparison of cases, and validation; and • Algorithms that allow for non-rigid registrations during operations.

These interventions represent multidisciplinary (i.e., combined work/input of radiologists, radiation therapists, surgeons, bioengineers, physicists, and computer scientists) efforts to integrate a variety of technologies; namely high-field MRI, computer-assisted fluoroscopy, endoscopy, and integrated and iterative navigational systems.

Equipment: The AMIGO suite will contain an intraoperative 3T MRI, a PET-CT, 3D ultrasound and an X-ray fluoroscopy system with navigational tools. The specific list of equipment planned for installation in the AMIGO location is as follows:

• A new 3.0T MR: Purchased by BWH from GE with funds provided by NIH grant and supplemented by BWH • An Alpha Maquet Surgical Table with MR-compatible three-section table top, MR-compatible transfer board, MR-compatible skull clamp, and transmobile table integrated with GE’s 3T MR and PET/CT Tables provided through GE’s strategic relationship with Maquet • A Discovery PET-CT (64 slice) • A Diagnostic Ultrasound unit • A X-ray Mobile 9900 flat panel C-arm Fluoroscope with Navigation Package (Note: the AMIGO room design will accommodate a ceiling mounted Innova system) • A Navigation System for Neurosurgery • A Patient Monitoring system for PET/CT room • A MR-compatible Patient Monitoring system that is integrated with the above surgical table • A MR-Compatible Anesthesia Unit for PET/CT room • A MR-Compatible Anesthesia unit for MR Room • An IT Server to work in conjunction with the AMIGO environment

IV. Optical Imaging Laboratory

Laboratory: The Optical Imaging Laboratory has a total laboratory space of more than 1,000 sq. ft. at the Thorn Building of the BWH. The laboratory has equipment and tools for small animal handling, in vivo imaging, and surgery. The director has access to the animal housing facility managed by the hospital’s veterinarian services. Two full-time postdoctoral research fellows with experience in cell biology, biochemistry, neuropathology, oncology, and animal work support the director of the laboratory. Besides imaging, the lab can perform cell culture, create animal models of tumors including brain tumor, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and melanoma, perform surgery, and conduct data analysis using commercial software and custom-written Matlab programs. The lab can also perform tissue harvests. For this, staff have access to the Harvard Medical School’s Rodent Pathology Core for histopathology analysis.

Office: The director has a total office space of more than 200 sq. ft. at the BWH.

Computer: There are six Windows PCs and one Linux file server available for processing and archiving data. An image archive system at LMRC is available for us to back up and archive data. All the computers are connected via Internet II high-speed network. All the computers and internet connection are managed by a full- time system administrator.

Equipment: The Optical Imaging Lab has the following major equipments: an IVIS 100 bioluminescence imaging station from Caliper Life Science Corp., NightOwl LB981 fluorescence imaging station from Berthold Technologies, Inc, and a CellVizio-Lab Fluorescence Microendoscope from Mauna Kea Technologies Inc. The first two stations can image small animals and well plates with high sensitivity, low background, and provide quantification results. The IVIS 100 station is highly automatic with a computer-controlled detector and imaging platform, and self-calibration. It is accompanied by Living Image software for image processing and quantification. The NightOwl fluorescence imaging station, with proper configuration of filters, can capture signals at wavelength ranging from green to near-infrared and quantify the results by using the normalized photon numbers. The CellVizio-Lab features a selection of miniature microprobes with an outer diameter ranging from 3 mm to 0.3 mm. The microprobes can be inserted into small animal as an endoscope to image brain, lungs, liver, kidney, colon, gastrointestinal tract, and other tissue/organs with minimal invasiveness. The microendoscopy image has a resolution of 2 m, approximating that of conventional microscopy, for in vivo diagnosis. In early 2008, a 3D Camera Ring–360 Degree Surface Profiling System for Small Animal Imaging, from Technest Holding Inc., will be installed at the Optical Imaging Lab. The system allows us to obtain tomography images of fluorescence signals in a small animal. Some other equipment and tools in the lab include surgical microscopy, surgical tools, a stereotactic system, refrigerator, and a stand-alone anesthesia system.

V. Nuclear Medicine/PET

Clinical Laboratory

Laboratory: The Nuclear Medicine department currently has 5 dual-head SPECT systems, one new Dynamic-SPECT (D-SPECT) system, and PET-CT 64 (DSTE-VCT, GE Healthcare). In April 2008, a new state-of-the-art SPECT/CT (Symbia T6, Siemens Medical Solutions) system, and a second PET/CT 64 scanner (DRX-VCT, GE Healthcare) will be added. The nuclear medicine clinic has a large hot lab for handling radiopharmaceutical doses, and a 400-SF dedicated reading room with extensive post-processing and image fusion capabilities. In addition, there are large, dedicated rooms for radiotracer uptake for PET/CT imaging.

Office: The lead and junior researchers and support staff have offices in the Thorn Medical Research Building and within the Nuclear Medicine Division of the BWH. A common area is also available for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows outside of one of the departmental director’s office. All these offices and the clinical facilities are located in the main hospital complex.

Computer: In addition to the many computer systems that are used for acquiring nuclear medicine images on the SPECT and PET systems described above, our nuclear medicine division also contains: 4 General Electric AW workstations used for various image reading and processing applications; 3 General Electric Xeleris workstations used for PET and PET-CT image interpretation; 8 Hermes Gold workstations which serve as local image archives and provide additional clinical and research image processing and review capabilities; 6 Siemens E.Soft and 3 Siemens ICON computers which are used mostly for SPECT image evaluation; 2 PacsOne storage computers; 4 Agfa “relay” computers, used for image validation and transmittal; and 2 General Electric Centricity workstations.

Cyclotron and Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry

Cyclotron/Radiochemistry Laboratory: The cyclotron and radiochemistry laboratory are housed in a new 2,400 SF building within the BWH campus. The facility is designed as cleanroom environment compatible with cGMP manufacturing procedures. The cyclotron is a General Electric PET-Trace dual particle accelerator (16.5 MeV protons and 8 MeV deuterons) equipped with 8 targets for production of C-11, N-13, O-15, and F-18 (both fluoride ion and molecular fluorine gas). This instrument is capable of irradiating eight targets (two simultaneously) with 16.5 MeV protons/deuterons. The cyclotron laboratory is equipped with computer controlled fully automated radiopharmaceutical production systems for producing routine positron emitting compounds and gaseous radioactive effluent monitoring systems.

The radiochemistry laboratory (approximately 1,000 SF) is adjacent to the cyclotron vault, and equipped with the necessary equipment needed to produce and develop PET radiopharmaceuticals for clinical and research use. It includes 6 Hot Cells (Comecer), and has a variety of automated radiochemistry equipment for remote-controlled synthesis, including General Electric FX (N), FX(E), and FX (C) Pro modules for synthesis of PET radionuclides for clinical and research applications. A radiochemical quality control (QC) laboratory (approx. 500 sq. ft) is adjacent to the cyclotron/radiochemistry laboratory. The QC laboratory has analytical equipment to confirm radiochemical purity, chemical purity, apyrogenicity, sterility and radionuclidic purity of the produced radiopharmaceuticals, including radio-TLC (Carroll and Ramsey Associates), radio-HPLC (Shimadzu), GC-FID (SRI Instruments), GC-mass spectrometry (Shimadzu), pyrogenicity testing (Charles River), and sterility testing. Radiopharmaceuticals that have cleared the QC process are dispensed for human use in an adjacent pharmacy, also residing within a cleanroom environment. The pharmacy employs an automatic dose dispensing unit (NukeMed) to minimize radiation exposure.

Chemistry Laboratory: Chemistry laboratory space (400 sq. ft) for the synthesis of labeling precursors is located in the Thorn research building, which is adjacent and directly connected to the Cyclotron/Radiochemistry laboratory.

Biochemistry/Cell Biology Laboratory: A biochemistry/biological laboratory (400 SF) for performing in vitro binding, tissue culture, and molecular studies is located in the Thorn research building, adjacent to the chemistry laboratory. These laboratories are equipped to perform tissue culture (laminar flow hood, incubators, inverted phase microscope, autoclave, etc.), immunocytochemistry, molecular studies, and for performing tracer studies in small animals (autoradiography). In addition, the laboratory contains basic equipment such as balances, pH meters, refrigerator, freezers, etc. This laboratory includes cold chemistry HPLC (Shimadzu), gamma counter (Beckman), centrifuges (Eppendorf), ultracentrifuge (Beckman), UV/Vis spectrometer (Varian), microscopes, electrophoresis equipment (Biorad), and tissue homogenizers.

Office: The Cyclotron and Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry group has approximately 650 sq. ft of office space in the Thorn building adjacent to the cyclotron facility.

Animal: Complementing the research laboratories in the Thorn research building is a dedicated small animal imaging facility (~500 SF). It houses a micro PET/CT system (GE Vista animal PET/CT scanner), and optical scanners. This laboratory has dedicated space for animal instrumentation and preparation.

Computer: Within this area are 10 Windows PCs. All the computers and internet connection are managed by a full-time system administrator.

Nuclear Medicine Physics

Office: All physics investigators have office space in the Thorn Research Building at BWH.

Computer: All physics investigators have desktop computers. The nuclear medicine physics group also has 3 SUN workstations, 4 Dell dual-processor systems, and a custom-built Linux cluster with 18 processors for running Monte Carlo simulations, iterative image reconstructions, and radiation dosimetry calculations. In addition, our micro-SPECT facility has a 6-processor SUN workstation currently used mostly for iterative micro-SPECT reconstructions. The physics group also has available a Hermes image-processing computer, a Mirada image-registration workstation, and a system for running Solidworks 3D CAD software for development of new phantoms.

Equipment: A variety of phantoms are available to the nuclear medicine physics group. These include two Data Spectrum torso/heart/lung phantoms, two Data Spectrum SPECT performance phantoms, one General Electric PET well-counter calibration phantom, one General Electric CT image performance phantom, mini- and micro-Derenzo phantoms, a RSD anthropomorphic torso phantom (Radiology Support Devices, Inc., California), a RSD head phantom containing realistic bone anatomy and separately fillable striata and brain background compartments, and a variety of custom-built phantoms designed by our group and fabricated using three-dimensional stereolithography.

VI. Mass Spectrometry Imaging Laboratory

Laboratory: The Mass Spectrometry Imaging Laboratory has a total laboratory space of approximately 600 sq. ft. with a 90 sq. ft. office in the Longwood Medical Research Center of the BWH. The director has access to the National Resource for Imaging Mass Spectrometry (NRIMS) located in the Partners Research Facility in Cambridge that is easily accessible using the BWH shuttles. The NRIMS directed by Dr Claude Lechene includes a Cameca NanoSIMS 50 prototype—a revolutionary Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer (SIMS). The instrument allows one to image the atomic composition of biological samples in cellular microdomains and, therefore, to study the localization, accumulation, and turnover of molecules labeled with any isotope, particularly stable isotopes. The director is also a registered user of the Harvard Center for Nanoscale Systems, also located in Cambridge, and accessible through the BWH and Harvard’s shuttle system. The director has access to both the Imaging and Analysis facility, and the Nanofabrication facility of the Center, where she operates a Zeiss Supra55VP Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) that allows surface examination down to nanometer scales. The facilities use clean rooms ranging from class 100 to 1,000 with leading-edge equipment capable of electron-beam and optical lithography, physical and chemical vapor deposition, dry and wet processing, and more. Both facilities provide resource and staff support for fabricating and characterizing nanoscale devices and structures. The director also has access to 400 sq. ft. of laboratory space in the Thorn Building, an area that houses the Brain Tumor Bank in close proximity to the operating rooms, and permits rapid acquisition and processing of tumor samples. The Brain Tumor Bank harbors frozen brain tumor specimens from over 3,000 patients with clinical information.

Computer: The computers in the laboratory include a portable Sony Vaio AR series with Blue Ray disc writing capabilities for data storage, two Dell workstations, one Macintosh Powerbook, and an HP Color LaserJet 3800. All computers have the necessary software and hardware for word processing, computation, graphing, internet access, and image preparation and analysis. All computers and the internet connection are managed by a full-time system administrator, and all computers are connected via the hospital’s Internet high-speed network system. External data handling and storage capacity includes a Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750 Gb hard drive and a portable Sony 100 Gb drive.

Equipment: The Mass Spectrometry Laboratory harbors two mass spectrometers. The Ultraflex III MALDI TOF-TOF200 mass spectrometer with imaging platforms from Bruker Daltonics operates with a 200 Hz all-solid-state laser using smartbeam technology, TOF/TOF capability, and a high-energy collision-induced dissociation accessory. The instrument is interfaced with a WIN-XP operating system that offers specialized applications for data analysis that includes: Flex software for data acquisition, analysis and imaging, Biotools 3.0 with additional RapiDenovo license for data preparation in light of database searching, and ClinProTools 2.1 for biomarker detection and identification with the additional Support Vector Machine algorithm.

The MicroTof mass spectrometer from Bruker Daltonics is equipped with an OmniSpray DESI ionization source from Prosolia Inc. The laboratory also has an ImagePrep sample preparation robot from Bruker for specialized MALDI imaging of lipids.

Other available equipment includes: a Millipore water purification system, Sanyo –80 C freezer, liquid nitrogen storage dewar with N2 monitoring device, Forma CO2 incubator, Leica CM1900 cryostat, Olympus CK2 inverted microscope, Olympus upright microscope, Olympus PM-10ADS photosystem, Nikon Eclipse TE 300 fluorescent microscope, Nuaire laminar flow hood, Branson 2200 sonicating bath, IEC Centra MP4 R tabletop centrifuge, Eppendorph microcentrifuge 5414, Beckman GP tabletop centrifuge, Sorvall OTD 6TB Ultracentrifuge, Sorvall RC-5B refrigerated centrifuge, LKB spectrophotometer, ABI 7300 Real time PCR machine, and a standard Thermocycler.

VII. Surgical Planning Laboratory

Laboratory and Office: The BWH Surgical Planning Laboratory, or SPL, occupies approximately 2,200 sq. ft. of custom-designed laboratory space adjacent to the clinical MR space on level L1 of the Ambulatory II Building (AMBII). This facility includes the SPL’s central computation infrastructure, the hub of its dedicated computer network, as well as multiple graphics workstations for interactive visualization of medical data, a robotics laboratory, and leadership and administration offices. Just down the hall from the main SPL lies the Radiology Department's main imaging center that includes scanners for MRI, CT, nuclear medicine, and other imaging technologies, all connected via high-speed networking to the SPL and the hospital's information system. The proximity of the SPL's main facility to the radiology and surgical centers within the hospital is critical to establishing new clinical collaborations and grounding research with a strong sense of clinical relevance.

The SPL maintains strong connections to other clinical and research locations both on and off the hospital campus. These collaborating facilities currently include the BWH’s National Center for Image Guided Therapy (NCIGT), integrated surgical and imaging suite, the Department of Neurosurgery, a multiple sclerosis imaging center at 221 Longwood Avenue, the Children's Hospital, the Harvard Medical School campus, and the Brockton Veteran's Administration (VA) Medical Center. Each of these sites, combined with satellite offices and non-clinical research facilities such as the SPL's main engineering facility at 1249 Boylston Street, are connected directly to the SPL's computing infrastructure via dedicated network links.

The BWH has also allocated two large and two small rooms in the Thorn building for SPL use with a total area of approximately 1,100 sq. ft. The area was renovated and new furniture was installed to create 14 office seats. The Thorn Building is adjacent to the Ambulatory Building. The SPL also has 5,000 sq. ft. of additional office space located at 1249 Boylston Street in Boston, approximately one mile from the main hospital facility with shuttle bus service running every 15 minutes daily. The 1249 Boylston location has 30 office seats for SPL personnel as well as a small “terminal garden” with drop-in space for five visitors.

The SPL's presence in the operating room dates from 1990 when researchers first used computer graphics workstations and video cameras to superimpose actual and virtual images of a surgical site.

As part of the SPL's mission to make the results of medical computation and analysis available to collaborators and the larger research community, the 1249 Boylston Street location operates a meeting and ‘demo room’ at its facility. This room has been used for small conferences, round table discussions, teaching sessions, presentations, and collaborative development efforts. The demo room also includes a stereoscopic projection system interfaced to an SPL workstation for three-dimensional visualization and data display.

Computer: The SPL has an established track record of excellence epitomized in the development of open-source software, like Slicer, a strong web-based collaborative infrastructure, a comprehensive local computational environment, strong core research and clinical programs, and sustained, and consistent clinical and research partnerships that pursue common goals, involving the bridging of medicine, imaging, and computation.

See more on Slicer below under “Relevant SPL Software: Slicer Surgical Navigation Software.”

In terms of network capabilities, the SPL space includes a computer room, a high-end network plant with UTP 5e and fiber optic connections to each workspace, and offices for the SPL director and staff, dominated by a “terminal garden”. The main purpose of this area is to provide an environment for the interaction between computer scientists and medical researchers and a primary space for interaction among investigators and collaborators. A network environment in the SPL has been established via access to the AMBII facility through a trunked gigabit Ethernet connection. The facility at 1249 Boylston is connected to the main SPL computer room via a dedicated fiber optic link running a mix of gigabit and 10 gigabit Ethernet optical fiber connections. The 1249 facility also has a multi-purpose conference room equipped with state-of-the-art presentation equipment.

The SPL staff maintains a software and hardware environment to support end users. Medical research computing requires a spectrum of computation from embedded systems to high-performance computer clusters. The SPL provides individual researchers and research groups with a computational foundation that addresses a wide range of research needs. New hardware and software extensions are added as needed to accommodate emerging or unique requirements.

The laptop computer has become the portable repository for many research ideas, particularly during early development stages. The SPL accommodates laptop connections to its internal network, but encourages researchers to move their data to reliable central data storage facilities to promote backup and sharing.

A network-attached disk storage array from EMC (currently 17 terabytes) is globally accessible across the network of SPL computers with performance capabilities sufficient to handle larger medical image data sets, anatomical models, and simulations. A Storagetek tape backup system provides insurance against catastrophic data loss. SPL-owned and maintained workstations from Sun Microsystems and Dell, most with multiple processors and high-performance graphics subsystems, are also connected to these disks as well as the remaining resources on the SPL network.

These workstations are available at all SPL locations for general-purpose computation and visualization. Most on-site software developers and medical researchers perform the bulk of their computation on these machines.

For computer security, the needs of the SPL are two-fold: to protect patient confidentiality and to protect the operational MR scanners that are connected to our network. To address these issues, the following security strategy has been developed and adopted: Users inside the SPL are essentially trusted, while all others are not given access. This philosophy was implemented by organizing the dedicated network facilities of the SPL in such a way that a single access point exists to the rest of the hospital. That access point is protected by a dedicated customized firewall system. That system allows access to the outside, but controls and limits any access from the outside.

Use of a one-time password system (S-Key) is required for telnet or ftp access from the outside. No other services are allowed.

Planning has begun for an update of the security measures to provide an authenticated public key access system with encryption using the SSH technology. This will be combined with an update of our firewall architecture. In terms of hardware, the SPL has four multi-processor machines specifically targeted at large-scale data applications: each machine has sixteen processing cores, 64GB or 128GB of RAM, and a top-of-the-line graphics accelerator. These machines run the same version of the Linux operating system as the SPL's desktop computers, so that developers can use them easily without recompilation and have the ability to increase the speed of compilation for large software projects. For the most demanding interactive applications, users have direct access to the graphics monitors of these high-performance multiprocessor computers. With all of the computation, data manipulation, visualization, and interaction happening on a single extremely powerful computer, a researcher can use graphical interfaces and algorithmic techniques that are years away from running on personal computers. These prototype applications and powerful computer platforms offer a glimpse into the future possibilities of interactive computation.

Multiprocessor computers and computer clusters allow large-scale medical data analysis and algorithm development.

Some computational tasks exceed the capabilities of even the most powerful monolithic multiprocessor machines, such as automated processing of large numbers of subject studies or populations. Computer clusters of identically configured machines are the tools of choice for this kind of analysis. In anticipation of this need, in 2006 the SPL installed and configured a Dell cluster of 100 computational cores running Linux. In collaboration with internal and external high performance computing experts, the SPL is enhancing its software tools to take advantage of this kind of cluster as well as its larger computing grid infrastructures. The SPL's years of experience in image-based computing includes more recent developments in imaging and robotics primarily focused on image-guided surgery and other types of therapy. In cooperation with the University of Tokyo, the SPL developed an MRI-compatible surgical robot that allows precise positioning of needles for biopsy and placement of radiotherapy seeds. The SPL's work in robotics is primarily funded as part of the National Center for Image-Guided Therapy (NCIGT), located at the BWH. In terms of software, the SPL’s unified software infrastructure for both UNIX and Linux-based computers offers a beneficial environment for both software developers and application users. This consistent software environment has hundreds of open source, commercial, and locally-developed software packages. The SPL’s system administration group is in charge of maintaining this software framework (as well as its operating system installation, hardware support, and network connectivity). By providing this environment, the SPL encourages its researchers to focus on new developments and productive work rather than repetitive compilation and configuration of pre-existing software packages. Using this same software distribution method, a researcher can make a new version of a locally developed package available to SPL co-workers in a matter of seconds. The SPL is the lead development group for Slicer, an open source, cross-platform medical visualization and analysis program described in full below.

Slicer Surgical Navigation Software (http://slicer.spl.harvard.edu/) Out of the SPL and its developmental tools emerged Slicer, or 3D Slicer, a free, open source software package for visualization and image analysis that is continually being developed within the SPL community. See Slicer's website at 3D Slicer is natively designed to be available on multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux and Mac Os x. Slicer's capabilities include: interactive visualization of images, manual editing, fusion and co-registering of data, automatic segmentation, analysis of diffuse tensor imaging data, and visualization of tracking information for image-guided procedures. In 2007, a new, completely re-architected version of Slicer was developed and released. Portal pages on this the Slicer website (http://slicer.spl.harvard.edu/) have been designed for end users or developers. Some of the core functionality that enables the applications listed above includes the capability to save and restore scenes using a format called MRML, a plug-in architecture to interface to external programs including ITK, a sophisticated statistical classification environment based on the EM algorithm, capabilities for rigid and non-rigid data fusion and registration, and processing of DTI MRI data. Slicer executables and source code are available under a BSD-style, free open source licensing agreement under which there are no reciprocity requirements, no restrictions on use, and no guarantees of performance. Slicer leverages a variety of toolkits and software methodologies that have been labeled the NA-MIC kit. Please click here to read more about the NA-MIC kit. With IRB clinical protocols appropriately created and managed, Slicer has been used in clinical research. In image-guided therapy research, Slicer is frequently used to construct and visualize collections of MRI data that are available pre- and intraoperatively to allow for the acquiring of spatial coordinates for instrument tracking. In fact, Slicer has already played such a pivotal role in image-guided therapy, it could be thought of as growing up alongside that field. In addition to producing 3D models from conventional MRI images, Slicer has also been used to present information derived from fMRI (using MRI to assess blood flow in the brain related to neural or spinal cord activity), DTI (using MRI to measure the restricted diffusion of water in imaged tissue), and electrocardiography. For example, Slicer's DTI package allows the conversion and analysis of DTI images. The results of such analysis can be integrated with the results from analysis of morphologic MRI, MR angiograms and fMRI.

A novel automatic multi-scale algorithm applied to segmentation of anatomical structures in the brain MRI. This leads to an accurate and efficient methodology for detection of various anatomical structures simultaneously. See Citation in Slicer Publications Database, an open searchable archiving resource of the SPL. Equipment: The Surgical Planning Laboratory maintains the following computer hardware: 1. One SunFire 6800 with 24 UltraSPARC-III CPUs and 24 GB of RAM configured into two independent and electrically isolated domains, each serving 12 CPUs and 12 GB of RAM. This set-up enables the SPL to reserve 12 CPUs entirely for neurosurgery cases, and to use the remaining 12 CPUs as a generic computer server for the laboratory. 2. One Sun Microsystems T3 RAID storage server configured with a total of 200GB of disc storage (100 GB/12-disk array [above]) 3. One high-end UltraSPARC-III SunBlade 1000 workstation equipped with 3D graphics acceleration hardware is used for intraoperative image guidance. This system has been integrated into the MRT system environment and is connected to the AMBII facility through a dedicated gigabit Ethernet link. 4. One Sun IPC (Firewall) 5. Two Sun Ultra 5 (one web server [1]; one mail server) 6. One Sun enterprise server 450, serving over 1.2 Terabyte of hard disk storage. 7. Four DLT tape libraries, which are used for primary back-up purposes. 8. 70+ Sun workstations, plus 20+ PCs with Windows or Linux and 10+ Macs 9. One Procom NetForce 3200C with 6 Terabytes (6,000,000 Megabytes) of storage based on redundant FibreChannel disk arrays and a specialized disk computer called a filer head. Redundant power supplies, cooling fans, disks, and other components mean that all the data on the Procom will survive any single failure. Two Gigabit Ethernet links directly to our network switch permit individual client machines to write data at up to 30 Megabytes per second. 10. One SunFire V880z with 6 CPUs and 18 GB of RAM. 11. 25 SunBlade 1500 single CPU workstations with 2 GB RAM. 12. 10 SunBlade 2500 dual-CPU workstations with 4 GB RAM. 13. High performance (1280x1024 resolution, 5000 lumen) computer projection system in 1249 Boylston demo room. 14. Separate high-resolution (1280x1024) JRT 3D stereo projection system in 1249 Boylston demo room. 15. A BIRN Rack consisting of 1 TB storage; 3 dual-CPU Linux Nodes; and dedicated network routing and monitoring equipment for connection though Internet2 to the BIRN Network.

VIII. CT/Tumor Ablation Program Facilities Laboratory and Clinical: The Tumor Ablation Program (TAP) provides tumor ablation therapy to approximately 90 patients per year. Ablation procedures take place in the interventional CT procedure room (L1 ASB2 Room 124), using the L1 level MRI scanners and the PET/CT scanner in Nuclear Medicine. The latter two sites are resources that are shared.

Office: Office space exists for principals involved in the ablation.

Computer: Standard hospital personal computers are available for TAP.

Equipment: TAP uses a Siemens Somatom CT scanner (located on hospital level L1 in ASB2 Room 124). The scanner is fully used for interventions by TAP and the BWH Cross-Sectional Interventional Service; an ultrasound scanner (adjacent to CT room L1, ASB2 Room 124) for interventions by TAP and the BWH cross-sectional interventional service; a shared GE 1.5T MRI scanner; a shared Siemens 3T scanner; and a shared GE PET/CT scanner. In the “Pike” area, there also exists a Toshiba 64 Slice CT. IX. Conjugate and Medicinal Chemistry Laboratory The Conjugate and Medicinal Chemistry Laboratory is located at the main building, the Peter Bent Brigham building, within the BWH. The lab is designated to provide technical support in design, synthesis, and chemical/biological characterization of molecular imaging agents, theranostic compounds or so-called therapy-enabling diagnostic agents for investigators from the BWH Radiology Department and other local hospitals and researchers at the Harvard Medical School. Research projects from the lab include the development of target-specific and nanoparticle-based multi-functional molecular agents for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders, brain tumor, breast cancer and other tumors; and in vivo animal imaging platforms for pre-clinical characterization of lead theranostic compounds. These include: design, synthesis, and chemical/biological characterization of molecular imaging agents and/or theranostic compounds, using conjugate and medicinal chemistry techniques. In particular, by employing both MRI and optical imaging technologies, we are trying to determine lesion-specific and altered Fe metabolism as a biomarker for Alzheimer's disease and breast cancer.

Laboratory: The Conjugate and Medicinal Laboratory has a total laboratory space of more than 1,500 sq. ft. at the Thorn Building of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and One Brigham Circle. The wet laboratory has equipment and instruments for cell culture, synthetic organic chemistry, small animal handling, cellular and animal imaging, and rodent surgery facility, etc. The director has access to the animal housing facility managed by the veterinarian services. Six full-time postdoctoral fellows and one technician supports the director of the laboratory. In addition, the lab has just set up a high-end data storage server (9TB) and a HPC cluster (16 nodes+1 head node). Three full-time postdoctoral fellows are working on various integrated informatics projects (biomedical informatics and cheminformatics)

Office: The laboratory director has a total office space of more than 400 sq. ft. at the BWH.

Computer: Within this area are 12 Windows PCs and one Linux-based HPC cluster (16 nodes+1 head node) available for computing, processing and archiving data. A high-end data storage server (9TB) connected to image archive system at LMRC is available for us to back up and archive data. All the computers are connected via an Internet II high-speed network. All the computers and the internet connection are managed by a full-time system administrator.

Equipment: The laboratory has the following major shared equipment: an IVIS 100 bioluminescence imaging station from Caliper Life Science Corp., and a NightOwl LB981 fluorescence imaging station from Berthold Technologies, Inc. Both machines can image small animals and well plates with high sensitivity and provide quantification results. The fluorescence imaging station, with proper configuration of filters, can capture signals at the wavelength range from green to near-infrared. In addition, our lab has access to the following equipment: Cryostat machine and microtome equipment, BioRad Mini-gel electrophoresis tanks and transfer apparatuses, three Beckman L-8 ultracentrifuges with multiple rotors (VTi70, SW28, SW40, etc.), four Sorvall RC5C centrifuges, LKB 1209 rack beta liquid scintillation counter, LKB gamma counter, Isco peristaltic pumps, fraction collector and UA-5 absorbance/fluorescence detector, Molecular Devices 190 plate reader and SPECTRAmax GEMINI microplate spectrofluorometer, Affymatrix GeneChip Arrayer for the whole genome analysis, Millipore 501 HPLC system, Beckman DU65 spectrophotometer, BRL4000 power supplies, VersaDoc™ Digital Imaging System (Bio-Rad), Packard fluorescence plate reader, balances, rockers, water baths, microfuges and vortices, and a Nikon Eclipse TE-300 inverted fluorescence microscope supported by a Macintosh G3 imaging system, and a behavioral testing apparatus. A rodent stereotactic brace as well as an anesthetic machine are available as a shared resource.

X. Radionuclide Therapy Laboratory Located at the A.I. Kassis Facilities at the Armenise Bldg./Goldenson Bldg. on 200/220 Longwood Avenue at Harvard Medical School, the Radiation Biology Laboratory develops radionuclide carrier systems to diagnose more sensitively and precisely the location of cancer cells and to maximize the effectiveness of radiotherapeutic agents, while minimizing their toxicity to normal tissues. The laboratory is also concerned with meaningful biophysical interpretations of biologic phenomena occurring in mammalian cells at the molecular, cellular, and tissue levels.

Laboratory: The facility comprises 5,260 sq. ft. of newly renovated space. Within the space are an instrument room, animal satellite/surgery room, animal imaging room with a Trionix multi-pinhole small animal μSPECT (≤1 mm resolution in mice), conference room, walk-in cold room, radioactive storage room, dark room, and radioiodination hood. The research laboratory is set up for handling radioactive material; personnel are trained and experienced in its use. Machine and electronics shops are accessible at Harvard Medical School. Office: The investigators have offices on-site on the first floor of the Armenise Building. A full-time secretary is available. Computers: For data analysis and manuscript preparation, a number of personal computers are available: Dell (one Dimension XPS, three Optiplex GX115, one GX116, three Optiplex GX260, one Optiplex GX270, one Optiplex GX270T,one GX300, one Precision 650, one Dimension 8200); two IBM pentium 4 PCs, one Alpha Innotech Corporation 233 MHz, and one O2+ Octane workstation (Silicon Graphics Products, Model # W12-400S-18G512); one SUN SPARCstation model 20 workstation for SPECT data connected by LAN to the Trionix SPECT camera/computer; one iMac. All computers are connected to local printers and have LAN/Ethernet internet access. Animals: Mice and rats are maintained at the animal facility within the Harvard Medical School Animal Resource Center and the approved satellite within our research facility specifically designed for use upon their injection with radioactivity. Equipment: Equipment in the laboratory includes: a UV/Vis spectrophotometer (Perkin-Elmer Lambda 20); luminescence spectrometer (Perkin-Elmer LS-50B) with dedicated Dell Optiplex Gs PC; three laminar flow hoods; two inverted phase microscopes; a Nikon fluorescence microscope; eight water-jacketed CO2 incubators; three centrifuges (Sorvall RT6000 and RC-5B, Beckman L3-50); two Hermle 2300K refrigerated tabletop centrifuges; a Galaxy 16 DH minicentrifuge; Eppendorf microfuge; a GeneAmp PCR 9700 System (Applied Biosystems); a UVP transilluminator/Instant Photodocumentation System; a NPE Quanta system for cell sizing, counting, and fluorescence measurements; gel electrophoresis (isothermal) and isofocusing setups; β-counter (1500 Tri-Carb); two γ-counters (Wallac 1480 Wizard); a refrigerated water bath (NesLab ex. 200); Waters HPLC (UV multiwavelength detector, Model 440) with IN/US System gamma RAM inline detector and chart recorder; a Capintec dose calibrator; ChemiImager 4000 with high performance cooled CCD camera and AlphaEase image processing and analysis software; a Coulter ZF Counter-Channelyzer; a Histostat microtome (─24oC); an ELISA reader (Labsystems Uniskan II); a Bio-Rad Immunowash (Model 1250); ─135oC freezer; GITA/mini GITA thin layer chromatography analyzer for beta and gamma radiation (RayTest Nuclear Instruments); a Graebel Savant AS160 Automatic Speed-Vac; and a Fisher Biotech model FB703 electrophoresis system.

XI. Physics Imaging Group

Laboratory: The physics imaging group’s main area at 202 Washington Street in Brookline, MA encompasses three floors, each with approximately 1,000 sq.ft. The Medical Imaging Physic Group also occupies three office spaces on the 3rd floor of the Thorn Building at the BWH at a total of approximately 900 sq. ft.

Office: At 202 Washington, the 3rd floor has six carrels for fellows, one large private office for a principal investigator, and one small office or conference room. On the main floor are: one large office area with three carrels for fellows, a large conference room with space for a seminar/meeting of 15 people and a kitchen. In the basement are: two private offices for investigators, two office/lab spaces with seating for three students or research assistants in each office, and an open area with carrels for five students or research assistants. At the Thorn Building, the group has one private office space and five semi-private office spaces.

Computer: On the 3rd floor, the building is connected by microwave link to the Partners Internet. Across the group’s sites, it has 6 PC workstations running Linux, 8 PC workstations running Windows, 2 power Mac workstations running OSX, 1 Mac G3 (old) pwrbk w/ Mac Os, some 15 workstations of the fMRI service running all Slackware Linux, a NFS file server 'kodaly' with incremental 30d backup that uses the SPL network, 12 workstations (3 state-of-art(<2yo), 7 older(5yo), 2 very old(>5yo)) - SUN solaris & Dell Linux, 2 (outdated >5yo) Mercury Adaptec Multiprocessor systems, and 4 PCs (2 state-of-art, 2 old) w/ Windows.

Equipment: At the Thorn Building location the group uses a 31P surface coil (tuned for 1.5T), 13C surface coil (tuned for 1.5T), MR-compatible infant incubator, and infant scale.

XII. Decisions Systems Group

The Decision Systems Group (DSG), located at the BWH’s 900 Commonwealth Avenue (Boston) offices, is a biomedical informatics research and development laboratory at Harvard Medical School and the BWH that has as its overall focus the development of algorithms, software environments, and computer-based tools that support the work of health care professionals (physicians, nurses, and other practitioners) and biomedical researchers. The DSG conducts research in computer-based decision support for patients and physicians, information retrieval, clinical information systems, image-based reasoning, bioinformatics, informatics for global health, and a variety of machine learning applications. The DSG has a training program in Medical Informatics (part of a combined training program with the Harvard-MIT-New England Medical Center) that concentrates on the development of new researchers.

Resources and facilities include shared computer systems at the 900 Commonwealth location and standard office supplies and equipment including photocopy machines and a dedicated fax machine.

The imaging infrastructure includes:

• 5 3T MR scanners
• 4 1.5T MR scanners
• XX multislice CT scanners
• Ultrasound
• digital x-ray
• mammography
• 1 interventional MR
• interventional CT
• interventional x-ray
• 1 PET-CT

Post processing capabilities include:

• commercially available packages such as xxxxxxxx
• a service center xxxxx
• participation in the tumor metrics core xxx
• The Surgical Planning Laboratory which has broad capabilities for advanced research