North-American School on Medical Robotics and Computer-Integrated Interventional Systems (NAS MR/CIIS)

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A. PROJECT SUMMARYVision - The goal of this proposal is to leverage and combine our education and research strengths in biomedically oriented engineering, robotics and clinical intervention to develop the North American School in Medical Robotics and Computer Integrated Interventional System (NAS MR/CIIS). MR/CIIS, as a field of study, requires unique cross-disciplinary training that encompasses elements of engineering, physical, medical, and biological sciences. We propose to develop an Winter School that will provide pre-doctoral students, post-docs and senior new-comers to MR/CIIS the tools to understand and contribute to the expanding field of computer integrated medical technologies and clinical interventions. We will provide tutorials, projects and research opportunities to conceptualize, design and develop computational sensing, information processing and robotics systems for medical interventions. A distinguishing feature of the NAS MR/CIIS is that it will provide exposure to techniques for designing systems that include both computational models/data and interventional technologies. From a broad perspective, the goal of the School is to foster the growth the field of MR/CIIS by providing a short course that marries engineering and clinical medicine.Intellectual Merit ? The intellectual challenge in this proposal emerges from the near contradictory requirement to deliver more effective, more precise and highly specialized medical care to a large population, while containing its cost. In the past decade we have seen computerization and automation of various manufacturing sectors producing higher quality, and exquisitely precise products at much lower costs. MR/CIIS offer similar benefits to medicine ? i.e. the computerization and (semi-)automation, through robotics, of the performance of clinical tasks. This is not possible without significant technological education, research and innovation in computational imaging and sensing, information extraction and visualization, automated guidance and assistance, efficient human-computer interaction and accurate on-line assessment and feedback. Johns Hopkins University and its partners in the NSF ERC on Computer Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology (CISST) are ideally situated to make significant inroads on this problem because of strong engineering teams already working on many of these systems, premiere medical institutions and clinicians willing to collaborate and use these technologies. Hence, the NAS MR/CIIS will capitalize on existing expertise and facilities, to increase the number of individuals who can comfortably answer the technical questions for the above systems, while fully understanding their clinical implications.Broader Impact ? The NAS MR/CIIS is by definition an educational program with far reaching implications. The goal of the School is to promote the growth of the field of MR/CIIS. Participants will have an accelerated path to research productivity. This acceleration is required to address the expected increase demand for medical interventions by the aging baby-boomers. Increasing the number of researchers in the field will increase technological innovation and deployment society-wide. The diversity of the participants in the program will benefit from our substantial experience in the recruiting and retention of women and minorities into our ERC CISST. We have relationships with LSAMPs and McNair programs in the area to recruit participants. We will also target HBCUs and other minority serving institutions by presenting MR/CIIS seminars at their institutions to generate interest in the field. We already have ties with some HBCUs, such as Morgan State and Howard Universities. We plan to also use our significant K ? 12 outreach contacts to invite two teachers to the NAS MR/CIIS staged in the US. To maximize the benefit of participation and to help transfer knowledge to their classrooms, each teacher will be paired with one of the leaders of the School as a mentee. We will develop a web portal, to be managed by the Computer Integrated Surgery Student Research Society (CISSRS), to disseminate MR/CIIS material, for discourse through Blogs, and to formally establish the community.Key Words ? Winter School, Medical Robotics, Computer Integrated Surgery