Relative Roles Core1a Core 1b Core2

Introduction

In 2007, NA-MIC DBP funding moved from the first generation of DBP to a second generation. This is an opportunity to rethink the roles and functions of the Algorithm, Engineering, and DBP cores.

The RFA says the following (excerpts):

• Core functions:

1. conducting core research in relevant science, such as algorithm creation and optimization
2. developing and deploying tools designed to solve particular biomedical problems
3. establishing Driving Biological Projects (DBP) to allow experimental biomedical and behavioral researchers to interact with and drive computational research in the NIH NCBC

The RFA for the second generation of DBP's contained the following language defining the role of NA-MIC funding in their enterprises:

• Willingness to adopt the NA-MIC kit
• Willingness to use DBP funds to hire at least one computer science person into the DBP to help translational efforts

The Introduction for the NA-MIC kit contains the following definition:

• It is our intention to include in the NA-MIC kit only software that is supported and comes with a BSD style license.

Based on all of this background and on conclusions with the experience from the first three years of operation the following guidelines are emerging for the role of the each of the 3 main cores of NA-MIC.

Overall objective

Developing the NA-MIC kit into a full-fledged environment for Medical Image Computing. All the NA-MIC participants will use NA-MIC funding exclusively for this overall goal.

Core 1: Algorithms

NA-MIC funding should be used for work inside the NA-MIC kit or to optimize algorithms for the NA-MIC kit. A successful algorithm becomes available as a supported tool, implemented in ITK, with a Slicer3 user-interface

Core 2: Engineering

Participants in this core are concentrating on developing the NA-MIC kit and modifying the platform to accomodate the needs of the algorithm core.