This application requests funding to support the 2021 International Workshop on Pulmonary Imaging, a three- day meeting to be held from February 25-27, 2021, which will be the seventh of its kind hosted by the University of Pennsylvania. The requested funds will primarily be used to cover travel and lodging for junior researchers who will be presenting at the workshop: undergraduate, graduate and junior faculty. Some funds may also be allocated to help pay for live webcasting and publication costs related to workshop materials. As with previous meetings, we intend to stream each session of the meeting in real-time, allowing those who are interested in the proceedings but unable to attend in person to access them online for free. As mortalities associated with pulmonary disease continue to rise worldwide, innovative imaging techniques capable of both diagnosing and helping to treat these pathologies are becoming an increasingly important. As a field, pulmonary imaging currently encompasses a wider range of techniques for the structural, functional and molecular assessment of lung disorders than at any time in its history. What is more, these techniques are being developed and optimized by researchers across an increasingly diverse set of fields such as biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, computer science and medicine. Given the field's rapidly-evolving nature, the existence of a regular forum in which scientists and clinicians can communicate their ideas with each other is of the utmost importance. Given the absence of other scientific meetings with a similarly focused agenda, our previous workshops have succeeded in providing just such a forum?allowing a diverse group of pulmonary imaging researchers to come together for the kind of rigorous, collaborative exchange that can continue to advance the field.
The specific aims of the proposed workshop are as follows: (1) host a one-day workshop on pulmonary inflammation; (2) inform the pulmonary imaging community of the latest advances in structural, functional and molecular lung imaging; (3) explore the use of pulmonary imaging to evaluate therapeutic response, the inherent obstacles to doing so, and strategies to overcome them; (4) investigate new approaches for integrating deep learning and pulmonary imaging techniques to more accurately diagnose and phenotype disease and predict injury progression; (5) broadcast the entire workshop live online, thereby enabling interested parties not in attendance to access the proceedings in real-time, free of charge. Based on the uniformly positive feedback in response to our one-day boot camp on pulmonary physiology prior to the 2019 workshop, we intend to hold another boot camp before the 2021 meeting, this time focused on pulmonary inflammation. This boot camp will consist of ~5 longer presentations (approximately 1 hour each) on topics related to this central theme, with significant time devoted to question and answer after each, and a final discussion panel aimed at synthesizing the most important issues covered over the course of the day. In addition to this exciting addition to the format, the 2021 workshop will again seek a more equitable balance between functional, structural and molecular imaging approaches to pulmonary disease across the invited talks, while also continuing to expand our recent focus on the topics of imaging assessments of treatment response and the integration of imaging techniques with machine learning. Finally, the 2021 workshop add a session on bridging the gap between current clinical practice and innovative imaging technologies.
This application requests funding to support the 2021 International Workshop on Pulmonary Imaging at the University of Pennsylvania. This recurring workshop provides a necessary and valuable opportunity for researchers working in the fields of functional, structural, and molecular imaging technique development for assessing lung diseases such as lung cancer, COPD, IPF and ARDS to come together in order to discuss and share their work. The full workshop proceedings will be streamed live online, allowing those unable to attend in person the opportunity to both watch and participate in the meeting.
