Engineering Approaches to Molecular Imaging Training

描述(由申请人提供)： 快速发展的分子成像领域寻求开发非侵入性成像特定基因和蛋白质靶标的策略，目的是更好地了解体内疾病的发生和发展，并加速将生物科学的基本知识转化为临床上新的诊断和治疗方法。这是一个高度跨学科的研究领域，涉及来自生物、工程、物理和医学的科学家。最近，许多成像、制药和生物技术公司都设立了分子成像程序。无论是在学术界还是工业界，最成功的项目将是那些将上述不同领域很好地整合在一起的项目，这些项目由受过足够深度和广度培训的多学科科学家领导，以产生新想法并指导这些想法的执行。我们博士前培训项目的目标是为学术界和产业界培养下一代分子成像领域的领导者。 该培训计划以生物医学工程为基础，这是一门寻求将工程学、生物学和医学无缝结合的学科。它是成像科学的天然家园，成像科学是分子成像研究的基础。我们建议每年为6名博士前学生提供精心设计的课程，为他们提供工程学、细胞和分子生物学、生理学、仪器仪表、合成化学和数学方面的基本知识。分子成像课程将学习这些基础知识，并向学生展示如何将它们应用于特定的生物问题。学员可以从16名教师导师中进行选择，这些导师涵盖了分子成像研究的各个主题。此外，学员可以参加为期3个月的实习以获得工业经验，参加每月分子成像杂志俱乐部，并参加国际分子成像会议，以第一手了解该领域的最新发展，并与从事类似研究的其他科学家建立联系。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The rapidly growing field of molecular imaging seeks to develop strategies for non-invasively imaging specific gene and protein targets with the goal of better understanding disease initiation and progression in vivo and accelerating the translation of basic knowledge in the biological sciences into new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches in the clinic. This is a highly interdisciplinary research field, involving scientists from the biological, engineering, physical and medical sciences. Recently, many imaging, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have set up molecular imaging programs. The most successful programs, whether in academia or industry, will be those in which the diverse fields listed above are well integrated, and which are led by multidisciplinary scientists that are trained in sufficient depth and breadth to generate new ideas and direct the execution of those ideas. The goal of our predoctoral training program is to train the next generation of leaders in the molecular imaging field for both academia and industry. This training program is based in biomedical engineering, a discipline that seeks to seamlessly integrate engineering, biology and medicine. It is a natural home for the imaging science that is the foundation for molecular imaging research. We propose to support six predoctoral students per year with a carefully constructed curriculum that will provide them with fundamental knowledge in engineering, cell & molecular biology, physiology, instrumentation, synthetic chemistry, and mathematics. A course in molecular imaging will take these fundamentals and show students how to apply them to particular biologic questions. Trainees can select from 16 faculty mentors that span the breadth of molecular imaging research topics. In addition, trainees can take 3- month internships to gain industrial experience, participate in a monthly molecular imaging journal club, and attend an international molecular imaging conference to see at first-hand the latest developments in the field and form connections with other scientists working on similar research.