August 2008

NCI's In-Vivo Imaging Informatics Working Group (IVI-WG) Comes to Stanford (9/9 & 9/10)

The cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG) Imaging Workspace will be hosting its fall 2008 "Face-to-Face Meeting" at Stanford University this coming September 9th & 10th. Daniel Rubin, MD, MS, incoming assistant professor of radiology, is one of the leaders of the activities within the caBIG Imaging Workspace. He arranged to host this year's annual meeting at Stanford for the purpose of familiarizing members of the Radiology Department and the Cancer Center with the projects and opportunities provided by caBIG, which will enable translational research and clinical care.

The caBIG Program or "cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid" is an initiative by the National Cancer Institute designed to use grid computing to interconnect clinical cancer centers nationally via common protocols, standards, and commonly adopted free and open source software. The ultimate goal of this project is to increase the availability of online data from cancer centers and other facilities across the world using grid technology. This will permit researchers and clinicians to personalize the care of cancer patients and make targeted treatment decisions by providing them with access to their patients' DNA make-up; tumor DNA and proteomic data; pharmacokinetic data; and anatomic and functional imaging data.

The Imaging Workspace includes nationally-recognized participants engaged in cutting-edge imaging informatics work and is just one of several workspaces that composes the caBIG Program. In the two years since its inception, this Workspace has focused on the development of tools for standardization and interoperability; the annotation of images to enable data mining in massive image databases; and the integration of images with molecular and clinical data. The Imaging Workspace has recently begun to leverage these development efforts to promote adoption activities.

The upcoming "Face-to-Face Meeting" will provide attendees the opportunity to become familiar with the Workspace's tools during an "Open Floor Tool Demos" session, which will allow participants to use the tools and ask the application development teams any questions they may have about them. Additional topics of discussion include strategic planning for future Workspace projects; the prioritizing of external collaboration opportunities; and the steps the Imaging Workspace intends to take to harmonize its efforts with other workspaces in order to fully leverage the caBIG Program's resources to impact patient outcomes positively.

2008 Resident and Fellow Graduations!

Resident/Visting Fellow (left) and Body Fellow (right) Graduation Dinners
(Images courtesy of Sandip Biswal, MD, and Aya Kamaya, MD)

Congratulations to all of our residents and fellows who graduated this summer 2008! The graduation dinner for residents and visiting fellows was held on Saturday, June 14th, at the Grove Ballroom of the Garden Court Hotel in Palo Alto. To view more pictures, please access: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29982130@N00/sets/72157605689133643/.

The below pictures are from the body fellow graduation dinner, which was held on Thursday, June 12th, at the Mandarin Gourmet Restaurant.

Announcements: August 11, 2008

Radiology Potluck Picnic for all SHC and SOM Radiology Staff: Saturday, August 16, 2008, noon to dusk at Flood Park (Maple Picnic Area) 215 Bay Road, Menlo Park, CA (please see directions below). There will be two large grills at the park for our convenience and charcoal will be provided. Park facilities include a playground, softball field, volleyball courts, and a sand box for playing horse shoes. For more information, please contact Yvonne Casillas at YCasillas@stanfordmed.org.

Japanese Society of Radiological Technology Visits Stanford

(Image courtesy of Mark Riesenberger)

By Mike Moseley, PhD

From July 21-25, Stanford Radiology held its third annual Japanese Technologist Summer Training Program. We have developed this joint educational program in partnership with the Japanese Society of Radiological Technology (JSRT). As in previous years, we had 24 JSRT participants visit for the week, with technical lectures in the morning; tours and workshops in the afternoon; and social activities such as Giants baseball, jazz concerts, shopping, and tennis in the evenings. The lectures were well received (many thanks to everyone who participated!). The highlight of the week was the reception at the new Stanford Medicine Imaging Center, Palo Alto, which gave the JSRT members an opportunity to meet and speak with many of our technologists. The Summer Training Program is a great way to introduce ourselves to the international radiology community, while building strong collaborations and more efficient practices in radiology worldwide. Many thanks again to everyone who spent so much time and effort to make this an ongoing success.