21st-Century Imaging Sciences: Undergraduate and Graduate Student Training

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Critical to continued progress in imaging sciences is the integration of traditionally discrete lines of research. For example, advances in observing organelles and macromolecular complexes in living cells need to be integrated with new methodological approachesto imaging live animals; advances in siochemistry that produce novel imaging agents need to be integrated with new approaches to selective cellular delivery and employ transgenic animal models simulating human diseases. To realize the potential that evolving paradigms of molecular, cellular, live animal and human imaging offer, a cadre of 21st-century scientists must be trainedand a revolutionary synthesis of chemistry, biology, engineering, physics and mathematics must be achieved. The imaging science community at Washington University, because of its breadth, diversity and depth of funding, is in an excellent position to foster the development of a new approach by attracting and training next-generation imaging scientists. We propose to devise curricula and develop opportunities that reach out to students at the most formative stages of their academic careersin their undergraduate and graduate years. Early accessto students is imperative to develop a broadly-basedacademic foundation in both the physical and life sciences, and in engineering. An Undergraduate Imaging Sciences Pathway will be developed. Students in their junior and senior years will have the opportunity to take courses in chemistry, physics, computer science, engineering and molecular cell biology as they relate to imaging sciences, and to gain in-depth research experience in laboratories of imaging sciencesfaculty. For predoctoral students, we propose to create a Graduate Imaging Sciences Pathway that will be available to students in the biomedical sciences, physical and quantitative sciences, psychology, and engineering. We anticipate that the Graduate Pathway program will mature into a formal graduate program in 2008, when we have optimized the curriculum and developed the administrative mechanisms for interdisciplinary training of students having mentors in the Schools of Arts and Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering and Applied Sciences. We envision that a graduate student who has completed training in the Imaging Sciences Pathway or graduate program will be poised to broaden their horizons and open new opportunities for research in the new age of interdisciplinary science. [Relevant Institutes: NIBIB, NIGMS, NCI.NINDS, NHLBJ]