CTSC:TTIC.091509

Back to Collaboration:Harvard_CTSC

Agenda:

1. Consultation
2. Report on Catalyst retreat (09/09)
3. Quantitative imaging, update with demo of draft material already prepared for the ACRIN meeting (Randy, Jeff, Wendy)
4. Quantitative imaging talk for Grand Rounds
5. Education program
6. MRI safety
7. TMS practice, guidelines, support and safety
8. ARRA supplement implementation
9. Status of XNAT (Wendy, Mark, Yong)

Harvard Translational Imaging Consortium Meeting Minutes September 1, 2009

In attendance:

• Valerie Humblet
• Gordon Harris
• Simon Warfield
• Jeff Yapp
• Wendy Plensiak
• Mark Anderson
• Randy Gollub
• Yong Gao
• Annick Van den Abbeele
• Gordon Williams
• Bill Hanlon
• Bob Lenkinski
• Ron Kikinis
• Laura Alice
• Clare Tempany
• Todd Perlstein

1. Update on imaging consultation requests

• Members were reminded to inter all their "informal" consultations in the JIRA system. It is important that all those data are collected. Valerie will work with the people at Dana Farber to collect data from the weekly meeting they have where they advice fellows who want to submit a protocol to the IRB.
• There was 4 new consultations this week, 2 are handled by Randy and the other are assigned to Todd.

2. Update on Catalyst retreat

• The slides presented at the retreat will be available online on the Catalyst website. Valerie will post the link when available.
• The main focus of the Catalyst is a handful of promising clinical translational investigator that will be mentored closely. To do this, a intensive consultation service will be created. There is also a lot of work being done on the education program. The imaging consortium will be asked to participate in the KL2 Medical Research Investigator Training Program.
• During the retreat, Bruce and Randy talked about the importance to also deliver to the rest of the scientific community. The MRI safety tutorial created by the imaging consortium is an good example and was very well received. Both the nursing staff at the MGH CRC and a PI wanting to add some MRI safety language in a grant already expressed their interest.
• One question raised during one of the discussion panels was: How to do research across institutions more effectively? Bruce suggested that we must allow PI and patients to move and keep pockets of deep expertise a the different institutions. It is not realistic to get everything everywhere. Oncology and the DFHCC is a good example that it is a viable solution.
• Pilot grants: Catalyst Central and the Research Navigators are working on revising the way pilot grants are awarded. They presented several new ways to fund. For example let clinician post questions and look for proposals. One of the main concern about the way pilot grants are awarded now is that it is not focus enough on young investigator.

3. ACRIN meeting

• On Wednesday September 30, 2009 Randy and Jeff will give a lecture at the ACRIN fall meeting, Arlington, VA. The Quantitative imaging workshop is n collaboration with Johns Hopkins.
  • Randy and Jeff shown the first draft of their slides and asked the group for feedback.
  • Wendy and Ron helped them to use Slicer for DCE-MRI. Link to progress report.
  • Jeff asked Valerie to follow with Bob to see if he would have other data set of DCE-MRI available
  • Annick and Simon insisted on the importance of validation, one must do the assessment of the technique, be able to do test-retest and do the assessment of the clinical outcome. There is a lot of disease activity that sometimes are seen in imaging but can't be seen clinically (eg: MS)

4. Education program

• Valerie did contact Cindy Fiducia, director of the education program at Catalyst Central to show her the draft of our proposal for education to see if it fits with the Catalyst vision. We are waiting for her feedback.

5. MRI safety

• Valerie will send a copy of the MRI safety material to the members of the consortium. They are asked to review it by the end of the week.
• Once posted on-line it will be important to get in touch with the IT team to ensure that we can get a count of the number of downloads.
• The material will also be distributed to the IRBs.