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Postdoctoral Research Fellowships inAdvanced Techniques for Cancer Imaging and DetectionAN NIH TRAINING PROGRAM Program OverviewThe Department of Radiology at Stanford University is offering qualified individuals a unique research opportunity through our Advanced Techniques for Cancer Imaging Program and Detection. The goal of our program is to provide M.D. and Ph.D. research fellows with training in cancer-related imaging research. Fellows have the opportunity to work with our world-renowned faculty who are committed to sharing their knowledge and mentoring the future leaders in radiology. This two-year program is funded by the National Institutes of Health and supports research in magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy using 1.5T, 3.0T, and 7T whole-body magnets; advanced CT imaging; computational modeling; visualization and image reconstruction; molecular imaging; and nanotechnology. Research fellows also have access to a fully equipped, stateof- the-art, small animal imaging suite that includes: a 7T small animal magnet; a PET system; microCT; microSPECT/CT; ultrasound; bioluminescence; fluorescence; and cryomicrotome and cryomacrotome for autoradiography. Fellows also have access to whole-body patient imaging modalities including, CT multi-slice imaging, PET/CT, SPECT, ultrasound, and all other standard imaging systems. Imaging systems are located in multiple sites in the medical school including the Lucas Center, the main Radiology Department, the Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Blake Wilbur Outpatient Clinic, and the Grant building. Our program allows basic scientists in medical imaging (Ph.D.s) and clinical scientists (M.D.s past residency) to collaborate in an unparalleled environment that combines medical imaging sciences, clinical sciences, a strong cancer focus, and an institutional commitment to training academic radiologists and basic scientists in imaging science. Program Design & RequirementsEach fellow’s research represents at least eighteen months of the training program and is supervised by a preceptor.The clinical exposure for the M.D. is six months and is supervised by the same preceptor who oversees the fellow’s research. Both Ph.D. and M.D. fellows benefit from core courses, lectures, seminars, journal clubs,and weekly research and clinical conferences in radiology, radiological sciences, oncology, radiation oncology, cancer biology, molecular pharmacology, and biostatistics. All fellows have access to the wide variety of facilities in the Department of Radiology and campus community. The program requires that research fellows audit the equivalent of more than a full-quarter course load (six classes) over the duration of the two-year program. In consultation with their preceptors, research fellows will plan their required coursework, which will vary according to their previous experience, from courses in the clinical sciences, cancer sciences, basic sciences, imaging/medical physics, biostatistics, and medical ethics. Fellows are also required to attend at least one conference per week, choosing from the many conferences, symposia, journal clubs, and other relevant activities that compose the academic life of the radiological sciences and related departments and programs.All fellows and their preceptors will be expected to attend quarterly dinners that include a lecture series focused on cutting-edge interdisciplinary research in cancer studies. FacultyUpon entering the program, trainee fellows will choose a short research project and identify an initial preceptor from among the group of basic and clinical research preceptors.After a fourto six-month orientation period, fellows will make a final selection of their research topic and their preceptor,who will work with them on the design of their training program and research project. Preceptors drawn from the Stanford Radiology and Radiation Oncology Departments include:
QualificationsThe ideal candidates will be individuals who have received a Ph.D. or an M.D. degree. Ph.D. candidates must have completed their degree in physics, engineering, or an imaging-related field from an approved doctoral program within four years of acceptance to this training program. Experience in imaging is preferred. M.D. candidates must have completed at least two years in an approved radiology residency program. The Stanford University Medical School is committed to increasing the representation of women and members of minority groups. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply. In accordance with NIH regulations, applicants must be citizens, permanent residents, or naturalized citizens of the United States. Application MaterialsApplicants should send:
Although your statement must be brief, you should attempt to be as specific as possible. Address the imaging modalities, the body and disease areas, and/or the faculty and laboratory resources that are of particular relevance to your application. The application information will be used to evaluate which candidates will be able to make the most of the fellowship opportunity and thereby receive the greatest advantages from the program. Send all materials to: Training Program AdministratorRichard M. Lucas Center for Imaging Room P-162A Radiological Sciences Laboratory Department of Radiology Stanford University School of Medicine Stanford, CA 94305-5488 DeadlineApplications are accepted throughout the year to fill any open positions each year.Upon receipt of completed application packages, the Program Administrator will contact candidates regarding the outcome of application review. Candidates who are invited to interview will be notified of their status within one month following the interview. The entire application process requires approximately four months to complete. Resources and Environment
The Department of Radiology at Stanford University has
five 1.5T GE Signa MR systems, one 3T scanner, and one 7T
high field system. These imagers are maintained with software/
hardware configurations that are as compatible as
possible (currently LX) so that new and improved techniques
developed on the full-time research machines can be rapidly
transferred to the clinical imagers. In addition to the 1.5T, 3T,
and 7T scanners, an open configuration 0.5T GE Signa SP System
is sited in a surgical suite in the Hospital, in proximity to
the inpatient MR scanners. This scanner has the "double
doughnut" configuration for use in developing minimally
invasive therapy procedures.
The Radiological Sciences Laboratory (RSL), directed by
Professor Gary Glover, Ph.D., is the major research arm of
the Radiology Department at Stanford. The RSL is one of the
few centers in the world with major centralized resources
devoted to research in the radiological sciences for both
basic and clinical scientists. There is an ethos in which research
and clinical practice are integrally connected; the
Radiology Department's clinical faculty and the RSL's scientific
staff collaborate with and provide support for each
other's research endeavors. In the environment, researchers
innovations in technologies and treatments are integrated
into clinical practice rapidly and smoothly. The RSL also has
close ties to many other academic departments and schools.
Radiology Department faculty and students closely collaborate
with and are involved in a number of shared projects
with the Departments of Bioengineering, Electrical Engineering,
Psychology, Psychiatry, Neurobiology, and Computer Science.
For example, the RSL and EE groups have a common
monthly scientific group meeting, which often numbers 50
or more participants and attracts many extramural attendees.
The Richard M.Lucas Center for Imaging ("The Lucas Center")
houses the RSL, the offices for the Radiology Department
chair, and over a dozen clinical and research faculty members
and their complement of approximately 50 postdoctoral fellows
and students. Magnet facilities in the Lucas Center include
a 1.5T GE Signa whole-body research MR system,a GE 3T
whole-body system with high-performance gradents, and a
GE 7T whole-body MR system.Each whole-body suite is equipped
with facilities for research in MRI and fMRI. In addition to
a full range of whole-body MRI systems and CT development
facilities, the Lucas Expansion, which opened in 2005, has
added more than 20,000 square feet of research and office space.
The Lucas Expansion is home to the only cyclotron for the
production of positron emitting radionuclides on campus;
radiochemistry facilities for radiopharmaceutical production;
faculty office space for both RSL and MIPS faculty; and the
technologically sophisticated Radiology Learning Center
(RLC).
The 3D Medical Imaging Laboratory, codirected by Professors
Sandy Napel, Ph.D., and Geoffrey Rubin, M.D., is located
in the Lucas Center and is dedicated to the clinical and
research applications of advanced computer graphics for the
visualization of medical data. All devices are networked and
the laboratory is connected to the campus network backbone.
Through this connection, the lab has access to data
from all of our CT, MR, and networked US scanners as well as
our 1.5 TB PACS tape library.The laboratory is the site of all of
our clinical 3D work and is staffed by three full-time 3D technologists.
The Magnetic Resonance Systems Research Laboratory
(MRSRL) is directed by Professors Dwight Nishimura, Ph.D.,
and Albert Macovski, Ph.D., within the Department of Electrical
Engineering and the Information Systems Laboratory
and has approximately twenty students and fellows.
MRSRL contains a sixth research system: a 1.5T MR scanner.
The National Center for Advanced MR Technology (CAMRT)
is an NIH program funded by the National Center for Research
Resources (NCRR) with Dr.Glover as PI and other members of
RSL and MRSRL as coinvestigators in six core areas.The CAMRT
sponsors the development of novel MR imaging and spectroscopy
technology; the collaboration of center scientists with
extramural users; the support of users in the community; the
dissemination of technology and information; and the training
of students and others. One of the components of this
center is devoted to fMRI development, with Dr.Glover as the
core director. The Blake Wilbur Outpatient Clinic is a clinical facility one block from the Stanford University Hospital and the Lucas Center entirely dedicated to outpatient medicine. The Radiology Department operates space for outpatient imaging, including two GE 1.5T MR scanners, an independent console, a Siemens Somatom Plus-S CT scanner, three general radiology rooms, ultrasound, and mammography. The facility is networked via fiber optic cable for the routine transfer of imaging studies between the various facilities.
The Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS), directed
by Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, M.D., Ph.D., is an interdisciplinary
program that brings together faculty from different disciplines
to explore new methods of diagnosing diseases and monitoring
patients through the development of novel molecular
probes, instrumentation, assays for living subjects, and
translation strategies for clinical imaging. The MIPS employs
a multimodality approach by using imaging technologies
such as positron emission tomography (PET), single photon
emission computed tomography (SPECT), digital autoradiography,
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), magnetic resonance
spectroscopy (MRS), optical bioluminescence, optical
fluorescence, and ultrasound. The In Vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Center at Stanford (ICMIC@Stanford) is an NIH program funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and is led by Dr. Sam Gambhir. As one of only eight NCI-funded centers nationwide, the ICMIC is a unique program. The goal of the ICMIC@Stanford is to provide better links between preclinical models of cancer and the clinical management of cancer patients by novel research in multimodality molecular imaging. NCI trainees will have the opportunity to work with scientists and clinicians developing molecular imaging models, many of which will be used in the clinic to further patient treatment. Radiology molecular imaging labs can be found in several sites on the medical school campus with the main labs located in the Clark Center and the Lucas Expansion. The Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence Focused on Therapy Response (CCNE-TR) is also an NIH program funded by the NCI with Dr.Gambhir as PI.The CCNE-TR brings together scientists and physicians from six academic centers and three industry partners in a novel proposal to use nanotechnology for the benefit of cancer patient management. Faculty from Radiology, Bioengineering, Materials Science, Oncology, and numerous other departments across campus and across the country are involved in this project and provide wide-ranging opportunities for NCI trainees to focus on molecular imaging and nanotechnology as applied to diagnostics and therapy. The Diagnostic Radiology Center (DRC) is located on the Veterans Affairs (VA) medical center campus approximately three miles from Stanford University and serves as a key portion of the radiology service at the VA.This facility has a stateof- the-art GE 1.5T Signa MRI scanner, one GE CT/i CT scanner, and another GE CT scanner currently being upgraded to GE’s 64-slice, state-of-the-art model.A 3T MRI scanner and an additional 64-slice CT scanner are planned for the near future. A brand new GE integrated angiography/CT suite is presently being installed and will be the third such system in place in the U.S.Three Acuson Sequoia ultrasound machines are sited in the DRC, and the nuclear medicine division will be installing a GE Discovery PET/64-slice CT this year.The department is entirely filmless, utilizing a well-functioning PACS system that interfaces directly with a digital voice-recognition transcription system. All imaging modalities at the VA are connected via high-speed networks to reading stations throughout the hospital complex and to the other facilities described above. Related Links
For Further InformationPlease email Donna Cronister: dcronister@stanford.edu |
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Stanford University -
School of Medicine -
Department of Radiology
Send questions or comments to rslweb@lucas.stanford.edu This page was last modified on Sep 10, 2007 |
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