Honors Grants
NIH MERIT Award
Dr. Andrew Taylor, Professor of Radiology, Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, has been honored with an NIH MERIT Award. Dr. Taylor has been an NIH investigator for the past 20 years and is currently Principal Investigator on two RO1 grants, one to develop Tc-99m renal radiopharmaceuticals and the second to develop a decision support system to interpret renal scans.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recognizes researchers who have demonstrated superior competence and outstanding research productivity by the highly selective Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award. The MERIT Award is given to fewer than 5% of NIH funded investigators and has become a symbol of scientific achievement in the research community. The Award was initiated by the National Institutes of Health in l986 to provide long-term support to investigators with impressive records of scientific achievement in research areas of special importance or promise.
Dr. Taylor is being honored for his work related to the study "Development of Tc-99m renal tubular tracers,"which he has lead for the past 25 years. Malgorzata Lipowska, PhD, is a co-investigator on the project and Luigi Marzilli, PhD, a previous co-investigator, is currently an important consultant.
Investigators are not allowed to apply for a MERIT Award. Selection is made by NIH staff and members of the Advisory Councils based on new and competing renewal grant applications from established investigators that are prepared and submitted in accordance with conventional NIH procedures coupled with a record of exceptional research productivity. The MERIT Award is designed to provide selected investigators with an opportunity to gain up to ten years of grant support. Specifically, the MERIT Award provides investigators with long-term, stable support to foster their continued creativity and spare them some of the administrative burdens associated with frequent preparation and submission of research grant applications.
Please extend your congratulations to Dr. Taylor as he is recognized for his dedication and progressive developments that have contributed to the advancement of medicine.
First Place Poster
The poster authored by Russell D. Folks, Dr. David Cooke, Dr. Ji Chen and Dr. Ernest V. Garcia of the Nuclear Cardiology R&D research laboratory received first place at the annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) in the category of Technologist Abstract Awards. The content featured detailed information under the title The effect of spatial and temporal filtering on automatic parameter definition in gated myocardial perfusion SPECT.
Top Atlanta Doctors
The Best Doctors in America database includes the names and professional profiles of approximately 45,000 of the best doctors in the United States. An exhaustive peer-review by thousands of doctors determines the physicians included in the database. Only those who earn the consensus support of their peers, as well as meet additional qualification criteria are included. For this reason, inclusion in the Best Doctors in America database is a remarkable honor!
Andrew Taylor, MD
Professor of Radiology
- Director, Radioligand and Expert Systems
Award of Excellence for the Best Medical Imaging Article in the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics in 2008
Ioannis Sechopoulos, PhD
Assistant Professor of Radiology
Medical Physics & Engineering Research
Carl D'Orsi, MD, FACR
Professor of Radiology
Director, Breast Imaging
The American College of Medical Physics awarded authors Drs. Sechopoulos and D'Orsi for their article "Glandular radiation dose in tomosynthesis of the breast using tungsten targets", which appeared in Volume 9, Issue 4, Pages 161-171 of the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics, 2008.
Innovation of the Year
Mark Goodman, PhD, has been awarded Innovation of the Year by the Emory Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) for the development of the PET tumor imaging agent 2-FACBC/2-FACPC.
When informing Dr. Goodman's affiliated laboratories, including the Center for Systems Imaging (CSI), of the award, Dr. Cale Lennon, OTT's manager of Dr. Goodman's technologies, stated "I am very excited and feel that the selection of his PET imaging agents as the winner is well deserved. We have received a considerable amount of positive feedback and commercial interest around Mark's research and development program to create and also validate novel PET imaging agents."
To read the complete article click here
See more of the research in Dr. Goodman's Lab
Georgia Cancer Coalition 2009 Cancer Research Award
Dr. Goodman has received this award to fund his work to develop a more effective nuclear imaging procedure for diagnosing prostate cancer. An internationally recognized radiopharmaceutical scientist, Dr. Goodman is the Director of the Radiologpharmaceutical Discovery Lab and a Program Director for the Emory Center for Systems Imaging (CSI). He is the Scientific Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Royal Radiopharmaceuticals in Atlanta.
This award is made possible by Georgians who contribute to the Georgia Cancer Research Fund on their state income tax returns. Four of the eight recipients are from Emory University School of Medicine.
Society of Cardiac Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) Regional Scholarship Award
Dr. Brandon Fornwalt (left) is the only North American recipient of this scholarship awarded by the SCMR. This scholarship goes to an early career investigator within 5 years of receiving their PhD or within 10 years of an MD. With this award, he was able to attend the 2009 SCMR annual meeting to present his abstract entitled "Internal flow fraction discriminates patients with dyssynchronous heart failure from age and sex-matched controls."
Department of Radiology
#22 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Funding
Two years ago, our Radiology Faculty Leadership began the process of developing a strategic plan to create a map for our department goals. While there are many initiatives of the radiology department, five key goals were selected and individually developed with an action plan. With the achievement of ranking 22 in NIH funding, we have made significant progress on our goal of achieving Top-20 NIH ranking.
When the goal was established, Emory Radiology was ranked 31, with the promotion to 27 in the fall of 2007. This move was a large achievement, for this took place during the time when NIH began to restrict its funding. The other factor to take into account is the shear quantity of funding it takes to move up in the NIH Funding Ranking.
The latest achievement of moving five additional increments to the ranking of 22 is a credit to the department as a whole. The achievements of our department are interwoven by our strength as a triple-threat department. Our clinical excellence attracts patients, talented staff and physicians, which stimulate the highest level of education and both of these entities, fostering the ambition of our researchers to stretch the limits with innovative research.
Changing the World
In the 2008 release of the publication the Better World Project: Part One, the work of Dr. Garcia and his colleagues is recognized in Chapter 16 for the company that evolved into Syntermed, Inc. and the advances he has influenced in Nuclear Medicine with the Emory Cardiac ToolBoxTM.
In 2005, the BWP was launched to create an understanding of how academic research and technology transfer has altered our way of life and made the world a better place. In 2008, the BWP focused on sharing the stories of 25 companies that work to bring "the results of research into use for the benefit of the general public, our institutions and the communities we serve."
Read the complete article in the Rad Report
Listen and Download the podcast with Dr. Garcia.
Visit the Better World Project
Supplement to the Translational Technology Resource Program of the ACTSI to
Advance Innovation through Imaging
Principal Investigators: Carolyn Meltzer, MD (Project PI); David Stephens, MD (ACTSI PI)
Co-Investigators: Stuart Zola, PhD; Mark Goodman, PhD; John Votaw, PhD; Leonard Howell, PhD;
Larry McIntire, PhD; Xiaoping Hu, PhD; Gary Gibbons, MD; Doug Eaton, PhD; Marc Overcash
Funding Organization: NIH, National Center for Research Resources (NCRR)
Significance: The National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) awarded $1.6 millilon in supplemental funding to the ACTSI, which has utilized the funding to award two suplemental stimulus grants. Both of these grants have been awarded at Emory, one to in the School of Public Health and the other to Dr. Carolyn Meltzer in the Radiology Department.
These funds will help further integrate the data archiving infrastructure across the Center for Systems Imaging (CSI) and at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, pilot a Molecular Imaging Fellowship and mentorship of interdisciplinary investigators, and institute an ACTSI Translational Technologies & Resources (TTR) Imaging Consultation Service and Advisory Group to strengthen partnerships that translate from animal model to human. Their work will involve significant involvement with both Morehouse School of Medicine and Georgia Tech investigators.
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Rb-82 PET Simulation Platform for Prompt Gamma Characterization
Principal Investigators: Ioannis Sechopoulos, PhD
Co-Investigators: Jon Nye, PhD; John Votaw, PhD
Funding Organization: Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc.
Significance: The purpose of the project is to develop and validate an advanced positron emission tomography (PET) simulation platform based on Monte Carlo methods and use it to characterize the prompt gamma signal included in Rubidium-82 (Rb-82) scanning. Rb-82 PET scanning is used for myocardial perfusion imaging for diagnosis of obstructive coronary artery disease. The prompt gamma signal degrades the reconstruction quality, significantly lowering the specificity of the imaging technique. This increase in false positive cardiac PET studies may result in unnecessary cardiac catheterization procedures, with their resultant risk to the patient, inconvenience, and increased healthcare cost. The development of a Rb-82 PET simulation platform and characterization of the prompt gamma signal will aid in the development of an image processing algorithm to improve the reconstruction quality of the PET images, leading to more accurate cardiac diagnoses.
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Motion Correction and Quantitative Image Analysis for Kidney MR Imaging
Principal Investigators: Baowei Fei, PhD; Diego Marin, MD
Co-Investigators: John Votaw, PhD; Xiaofeng Yang, MS
Funding Organization: Atlanta Clinical & Translational Science Institute/ URC Emory University
Significance: Progressive diseases of the kidney and development of renal failure requiring dialysis or renal transplantation is becoming an alarming healthcare issue in the United States. The prevalence of obesity is the largest of any nation with estimates of 23% of the population meeting clinical definition for obesity. Diabetes and hypertension related to obesity have also been increasing. The current incidence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and dialysis is 45,000 and 23,000 new cases per year, respectively.Treatment of endstage renal disease is transplantation, but transplants may fail acutely and subacutely due to surgical and immunological complications, or chronically due to immunological rejection or anti-rejection medication toxicity. Therapies are being formulated for the major causes of progressive renal disease and for improving kidneytransplant survival, however, there is a lack of non-invasive comprehensive reproducible clinical tests that are readily available. Safe, noninvasive, fast and repproducible imaging technique of renal structure and function may provide a better alternative to fulfill the important unmet clinical need.
The overarching aim is to improve outcomes of therapy and kidney transplant survival by improving monitoring of disease and measurement of treatment effects. We will develop an MRI technology comprised of comprehensive modules including rapid image acquisition technique, automatic image processing and motion correction algorithms, and statistical and quantitative analysis components that may be packaged and made immediately available to the clinical centers caring for renal disease patients.
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A Comparison Study of Breast Tomosynthesis Images Reconstructed
Principal Investigators: Mary Newell, MD
Funding Organization: Hologic, Inc.
Significance: The primary goal of this project is to compare the area under the ROC curves of tomosynthesis as a diagnostic tool when using 1-mm and 5-mm thick reconstructions. This will be achieved by performing a retrospective study of the tomosynthesis images reconstructed to both thicknesses, using the results of the standard clinical diagnostic workup (including repeat mammograms, magnification mammography, and ultrasound, according to the current standard of care) as the gold standard.
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- Drs. John Votaw, Carolyn Meltzer, Mark Goodman and Xiaoping Hu (left to right) collaborate to formulate an action plan for the P50 grant.
NCI awards Emory a $7.5 million, P50 for Cancer Imaging
Principal Investigators: Carolyn Meltzer,MD; Mark M. Goodman; PhD, Xiaoping Hu, PhD
Funding Organization: National Cancer Institute (NCI)
The four projects covered by the grant are:
o Clinical studies of an amino acid PET probe being tested
with prostate cancer patients. The probe could help
doctors identify which tumors require aggressive treatment
and which do not. Goodman, an expert in developing PET
reagents, calls this project "an example of the bench-to-
bedside capabilities of our investigative team."
o Laboratory studies of tiny iron particles linked to proteins that specifically bind breast cancer cells. The iron
particles could be useful because they generate a strong MRI signal, but their small size means they have
novel properties that require extensive evaluation before use in humans.
o Generation of PET probes that target squamous cell carcinomas, the most common cancer of the head and
neck. The probes will be designed to bind molecules that allow the cancer cells to metastasize and invade
lymph nodes, so they could detect cells with the most metastatic potential.
o Laboratory studies of a fluorescent dye that specifically accumulates in cancerous cells, which could lead
to better diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.
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Automatic Ventricular Boundary Detection From Cardiac CT
Principal Investigators: Tracy Faber, PhD & Anthony Yezzi, PhD
Funding Organization: Emtech Biotechnology, INC
Significance: The overall goal is to improve the care of cardiac patients through automatic functional analysis of cardiac CT studies. As a first step to this, we propose to develop and validate software for detecting LV and RV boundaries from cardiac CT.
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3D Fusion and Visualization of Quantified Cardiac CTCA and Nuclear Perfusion Imagery
Principal Investigator: Tracy Faber, PhD
Co-Investigators:Liudmilla Verdes; Paolo Raggi, MD; Ernest Garcia, PhD; Eldad Haber, PhD; Jakob Biten-Johansen, MD; Arthur Stillman, MD; Habib Samad, MD; Fabio Esteves, MD; Anthony Yezzi, PhD
Funding Organization: NIH R01
Significance: The long term goal of the project is to develop accurate and automatic fusion methods for integrating coronary artery data from CT Coronary Angiography (CTCA) with myocardial perfusion data from nuclear medicine. This explicit integration will increase accuracy for diagnosing coronary artery disease, while reducing the number of more invasive coronary angiography exams currently used for this purpose, ultimately improving the overall care of patients as well as reducing the overall cost of diagnosis.
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MRI Patient Selection and Treatment Planning in CRT
Principal Investigator: John Oshinski, PhD
Co-Investigators: Jana Delfino, PhD; Brandon Fornwalt, PhD; Angel Leon, MD; David Delurgio, MD
Funding Organization: American Heart Association
Significance: Currently 30-40% of subjects undergoing Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) involving a bi-ventricular pacemaker do not respond to the treatment. This low response rate is thought to be due to either:
1) a lack of underlying mechanical dyssynchrony in the heart,
2) a larger burden of scar in the heart, or
3) the inability to place a pacing lead in an area of viable tissue. In this study, we combine MRI cine imaging to detect mechanical dysynchrony with an MRI map of myocardial viability overlaid with coronary vein locations. This complete picture will allow better patient selection for CRT (thereby increasing response rate), and will allow pre-procedure planning of the location of the placing lead in an area of viable tissue.
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Evaluation of UFC Spect Camera
Principal Investigator:Earnest Garcia, PhD
Co-Investigators:Fabio Esteves, MD; Anwar Khan, MD
Funding Organization: GE Healthcare, Ltd.
Significance: The study proposes to investigate the important clinical question of whether the diagnostic accuracy for coronary artery disease (CAD) of myocardial perfusion imaging ( MPI) studies acquired with the device are comparable to the accuracy from conventional acquisition and protocols and/ or whether these results may be improved if new acquisition protocols are developed.
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A Pilot Study of the Utility of the Novel Amino Acid Radiotracer
Principal Investigator:David Schuster, MD
Co-Investigators:Jonathan Nye, PhD; Daniel Miller, MD; Andrew Young, MD, PhD; Mark Goodman, PhD
Funding Organization: Nihon Medi- Physics LTD
Significance: The specific hypothesis in this proposal is that anti-[18-F] FACBC will accumulate in malignant lung tumors, allowing visualization
with PET-CT.
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Breast Cancer Chemotherapy Monitoring with Dedicated Breast Computed Tomography
Principal Investigators:Carl D'Orsi, MD;
Ioannis Sechopoulos, PhD
Funding Organization: Internal Seed Grant, Emory Molecular and Translational Imaging Center (NIH P20)
The goal of the proposal is to use a dedicated breast CT system to closely monitor the changes in size and blood flow of breast tumors in patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy. For this, a prototype dedicated breast CT system, to be installed in June in the Breast Imaging Center, will be used. This system will be only the second prototype clinical system of its kind in the world. Its isotropic high resolution, high contrast, low dose capabilities bring about a wide variety of new approaches to breast cancer detection and treatment that will be investigated here at Emory.
The ultimate aim of this work, for which this grant is just an initial first step, is to be able to adjust the chemotherapy treatment according to imaging-based monitoring of tumor response. Today most patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy are treated with a certain pre-determined number of treatment cycles, each separated by a fixed amount of time, with varying results due to each individual tumor’s response to the chemotherapeutic drugs. Breast CT monitoring could result in a personalized therapy regimen, in which non-responders are identified in a short period of time so that other treatment options are sought. Further, treatment can be terminated early for complete responders, for whom the additional cycles do not provide any additional benefits.