International: A US-Germany Research Collaboration on Systems for Computer-Integrated Healthcare

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

Computer-Integrated Medicine (CIM) is a new and rapidly growing area with high global appeal. Work in CIM is multi-national and inter-disciplinary. International research exchange is thus essential in creating state-of-the-art CIM systems, and in supporting CIM research programs. The goal of this International Research Experiences for Students project is to create a bilateral international research exchange program on computer-integrated medicine (CIM) between the Technical University of Munich (TUM) Graduate School in Information Science and Health (GSISH) and the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology (CISST-ERC). Our vision is to develop a joint research and education activity that merges team research projects with cohort-focused education and organized cultural and socialization experiences, thereby creating a wide-ranging and long-term collaborative research program between our institutions. Both the TUM and JHU are national leaders in CIM, with networks of research collaborations that span their respective continents. The proposed IRES support will provide the ?missing link? in our existing faculty interactions and unilateral student exchange, to bind the networks of the two institutions into one larger transatlantic network on a more systematic and sustainable level. We have developed the exchange to focus on the development of a cohort experience for students with an innovative educational and research mentoring environment. Our collaboration will focus on four research projects that exploit the inherent synergies of JHU and TUM. They are: 1) Automated surgical skill modeling and workflow analysis; 2) Video reconstruction and registration for advanced surgical visualization; 3) Software systems for information-enhanced surgery; and 4) Medical robotics devices and systems for microsurgery. Each of these projects is led by both TUM and JHU faculty, and takes advantage of complementary skills at each institution. Our project will emphasize the development of research networks that the students will be able to take advantage of after the exchange ends, leading to long-term international cooperation. The focus on graduate students in the exchange provides a longer time horizon for the networks, and the eventual inclusion of undergraduates in the exchange will cement the transatlantic research community in this growing area of important interdisciplinary research. This project is supported by NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) and the NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Divisions of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) and Robust Intelligence (RI).