Center for Grid-Enabled Medical Image Analysis

Ohio State University, Columbus OH

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): With the increasing emphasis of medical research and clinical practice on complex datasets obtained from a variety of imaging modalities, there is a great need for advances in image processing, analysis, and storage capabilities. The resolution associated with the imagery varies in scale from macroscopic (e.g., radiology studies) to microscopic (slides from biopsies). The imagery can be two or three-dimensional, static or time dependent, and the data yield a wealth of metabolic and anatomic information. While having the ability to obtain this wealth of information has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of disease pathophysiology as well as the noninvasive diagnosis of disease in patients, the need to process, analyze and store this large amount of image data presents a great challenge. In areas ranging from fundamental basic to clinical research, the great promise of imaging technology cannot be realized without exploiting powerful distributed computing resources to handle the massive data and processing requirements of datasets at multiple sites. The sites may lie within a medical center and University or may span many geographically separated institutions. While the OSU and OSC researchers and the resources described in the proposal form an ideal substrate for a center, a pre-NPEBC is needed to leverage existing OSU resources to catalyze development of a highly collaborative research and training environment. Without a center, we would expect only to see a sparse set of non-interacting imaging-related collaborations. The Center environment would produce highly innovative interdisciplinary projects and would provide new scientists with unparalleled training opportunities. Furthermore, this would enable OSU to train inter-disciplinary scientists, well-versed in imaging methods, computing and the use of both in the clinical and research environment.