The University of Iowa Lung Imaging Training Program will prepare pre-doctoral and post- doctoral trainees to explore questions related to the respiratory system and lung disease using medical imaging, image processing, and computational modeling. The program will encourage trainees to pursue careers related to lung disease research. Program participants will attain expertise in medical image acquisition, novel imaging hardware, medical image processing, software development, and computational modeling. Each trainee will receive individualized attention and assistance with respect to curriculum selection, program performance and successful completion, and career planning and development. Program trainees will have access to the extensive resources and facilities that make the University of Iowa a top-ranked institution in lung health science research, including a number of well-funded multidisciplinary research programs and graduate education programs such as the Institute for Clinical and Translational Science Graduate Program in Translational Biomedicine and the Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging. Program mentors are drawn from 14 different academic and clinical departments across campus, spanning three different Colleges. The leadership and faculty of this training program have a notable history of effective collaboration in recruiting, retaining, and training pre-doctoral and post-doctoral fellows and have a strong interest in developing the next generation of scientists and engineers with the requisite skills to address urgent problems related to lung disease.
Lay Summary Lung disease is a serious health problem and a major cause of morbidity and mortality. We believe that in order to advance our understanding of the lung and respiratory system, we must develop and apply new imaging-based and computational methodologies to help us understand the lung in its normal healthy state and in the presence of disease. In this project, we propose an integrated lung imaging training program to develop the next generation of scientists and engineers prepared to study the normal and diseased lung using medical imaging, image processing, and computational modeling.
