An investigator-initiated (R-13) conference grant is proposed to support and conduct a series of workshops titled """"""""Biomedical Imaging Research Opportunities Workshops (BIROW)"""""""". These workshops will be sponsored by the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the Academy of Radiology Research (ARR), the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and a consortium of 14 participating societies, essentially including all general and specialty radiological societies, engineering societies, and basic imaging science societies. The participating societies include; American Brachytherapy society (ABS), American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (ALUM), American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS), Acoustical Society of America (ASA), Association of University Radiologists (AUR), Fleischner Society for Chest Diagnosis, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), Medical Image Perception Society (MIPS), Society for Computer Applications in Radiology (SCAR), Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR), Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM), Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), and the Ultrasonics Ferroelectrics Frequency Control (UFFC). We also have scientific participation from NIBIB and NCI program staff and are proposing conference support from those institutes. The purpose of the workshop is to use the cumulative scientific expertise from representative scientific/ educational societies in biomedical imaging to identify research areas of outstanding potential during these critical years of rapid changes in structure and progress of biomedical imaging research. This goal will be achieved by a sequence of five additional annual workshops with strong contributions by leading biomedical imaging societies. Each workshop will produce a report on each of the highlighted topics. The report will be forwarded to participants and to all participant/sponsoring societies and government agencies. The intent of this process is to identify and explore opportunities for basic science research in biomedical imaging and related diagnosis and therapy in a manner that will: 1) allow accelerated development of biomedical imaging as a scientific discipline; and 2) facilitate coordinated imaging research. The Workshop is planned for 3/1-2/04 in Bethesda, MD.
