It's a classic academic mismatch: Researchers aren't
able to make use of seminal improvements
in technology — often from colleagues just across the
street — either because they don't know about
them or because gaining familiarity makes unrealistic
demands on their time.
For those very reasons, Johns Hopkins' Brain Science
Institute is underwriting the new Center
for Translational Imaging. The enterprise aims to channel
expertise from Johns Hopkins' various
imaging-dedicated centers into creating a surge,
universitywide, in the understanding and use of
imaging techniques for neuroscience research.
The CTI's translational goals are both immediate and
long-term, according to Susumu Mori, a
magnetic resonance physicist and co-director of the center.
Immediately, the idea is to make
accessible very-high-quality anatomical MRI, MR
spectroscopy, functional MRI, PET and newer
offshoots such as diffusion tensor imaging. The prime
targets of such "upgrades" are researchers
with basic and clinical neuroscience studies in fields such
as neurology, psychiatry, developmental
biology, psychology, genetics, pathology and biomedical
engineering.
But the center's ultimate purpose — and the
basis for Brain Science Institute support — upholds
the traditional meaning of translational. Ideally, improved
imaging in Johns Hopkins' brain-oriented
projects will hasten therapies for brain diseases.
The timing is right, Mori said. "It's no coincidence
that we're starting our center now," he said.
"There's currently a bottleneck in the imaging field that
interferes with the progress of biomedical
research." The problem, he said, isn't in the ability to
acquire good data from imaging. "That was the
bottleneck 15 years ago," Mori said. "Now, however,
high-quality MRI and PET scanners are available.
Their new technology lets users access state-of-the-art
capabilities just by pushing buttons. Yet
we're victims of our own success; quality images are so
easily generated that the volume overwhelms
researchers and clinicians."
The new bottleneck, Mori said, lies in not being able
to quantify information from a glut of
images or interpret it rapidly enough. It's the access to
good image analysis that must increase.
The CTI aims to improve things, universitywide, with
several approaches. First, the center will
set up a "protocol core" staffed by expert advisers who
will review proposed studies and offer
guidance in collecting images. They'll also refer
researchers to an appropriate Johns Hopkins imaging
data acquisition site. Sites include the
F.M. Kirby
Research Center for Functional Brain Imaging at the
Kennedy Krieger Institute, the Molecular Imaging Center in
the Broadway Research Building and the
Department of Radiology's PET Center, MRI Service Center
and Animal NMR Service Center, all in
East Baltimore.
Once high-quality images are generated, the protocol
core serves as a bridge to analysis in
several ways. For one, it offers training — both
individual and group — in the most widely used image
analysis techniques. This educational arm of CTI will make
computers and training available on a daily
basis. "We anticipate high demand for this service," said
Marilyn Albert, another of CTI's co-
directors. "The interest is already there."
In addition, the CTI aims to centralize services for
image analysis, particularly for projects
with high-quality anatomical images. Though still in the
planning stages, two image analysis stations will
open — one, under Mori, in the Traylor Building on
the East Baltimore campus and another, headed by
CTI co-director Michael Miller, at Homewood's Center for
Imaging Science.
At first, CTI will charge for its comprehensive
analysis, but the ultimate hope is to automate
the process so fully that investigators can perform it,
gratis, in their own laboratories. "That ability is
critical because it will free the center to create even
more advanced image analysis and share it," Mori
said.
Especially helpful, the planners said, is CTI's "grant
support core" opening this year. The intent
is to provide the pilot funding that lets studies
incorporate useful, quality human or animal imaging,
making investigators more likely to get outside grant
awards.
These improvements will come in phases. While imaging
analysis occurs now at Johns Hopkins,
CTI's efforts will ultimately add workstations, improve the
ease of analysis and foster wider use of
high-quality imaging.
The interests of the CTI's three architects bring
considerable breadth to the new center.
Susumu Mori, with the School of Medicine's Department of
Radiology, was key in developing the
MRI capability to study brain anatomy.
Biomedical
Engineering's Michael Miller, who directs the Center
for Imaging Science in the
Whiting School of Engineering, pioneered the field of
computational anatomy. Getting computers to
generate anatomically correct brain regions, he said,
should enable scientists to relate changes in
brain structure to patient symptoms in schizophrenia,
depression, Alzheimer's disease and others.
Neurology's
Marilyn Albert, who directs that department's Division of
Cognitive Neuroscience,
is well-known for her work to understand the clinical
biomarkers — including those derived from brain
imaging — associated with aging and Alzheimer's
disease.