The University of Wisconsin is unique in that two federally funded Cancer Centers, The UW Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research are both located on campus. These two centers are now in the process of merging to form a single comprehensive cancer center with tremendous cancer biology and clinical intellectual and technical resources. In conjunction with this merger, the University recently unveiled its HealthStar-2000 initiative, one facet of which includes building a new 350,000 ft2 twin-tower medical research facility to be know as the Interdisciplinary Research Complex (IRC). The IRC will be strategically located adjacent to the current UW Hospital and Comprehensive Cancer Center complex and equidistant from both the Waisman Center and new School of Pharmacy building (completion in 2000). The IRC will house cancer, heart and vascular, molecular medicine, neuroscience, transplantation, aging, and womens health programs. The IRC is intended to catalyze and nurture interdisciplinary research. A strong emphasis will be placed on research with a molecular theme. Indeed, molecular biology applied in translational research will serve as the intellectual theme of the IRC. Moreover, the new IRC will house a 50,000 ft2 Image Science Center where collaborating medical physicists, radiologists, oncologists, and cardiologists will develop noninvasive diagnostic technologies. Therefore, the long term objective of this P20 pre-molecular imaging Ii center planning grant, nicknamed the Wisconsin Interdisciplinary Molecular Imaging Center (WIMIC), is to form the foundation of a I subsequent P50 interdisciplinary molecular imaging center grant in order to meld the vast cancer research and imaging sciences community at UW into a leading interdisciplinary molecular imaging center. The specific objectives of this application are to: 1) Organize a structure to encourage and foster the interaction of basic cancer biology researchers with imaging scientists in an effort to answer unique cancer-related questions. 2) To provide scientists access to novel targeted cell-selective imaging agents and to evaluate these agents in new biological systems. 3) To utilize shared institutional funds to provide funding for interdisciplinary post doctoral and graduate student support. 4) Initiate a bimonthly seminar series featuring elite molecular imaging scientists and state of the art imaging technologies and open to scientists of all disciplines. 5) Provide opportunities for women, minority, and young investigators through interaction with WIMIC members and small seed grants.
| Pickhardt, Perry J; Halberg, Richard B; Taylor, Andrew J et al. (2005) Microcomputed tomography colonography for polyp detection in an in vivo mouse tumor model. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 102:3419-22 |
