Innovative Ultrasound Technology in Neuromuscular Disease

描述（由申请人提供）：候选人Seward Rutkove博士在更新其以患者为导向的研究中期研究者奖时，建议在神经学研究方面发展他对年轻研究者的指导工作，同时继续追求他的长期职业目标，即改进神经肌肉诊断技术。Rutkove博士计划指导两个特定的个人群体，自2008年他的第一个K24项目获得资助以来，他一直在全力以赴地做这件事。第一组由初级神经学教员组成，他们中的大多数人在鲁特科夫博士的神经肌肉疾病亚专业之外工作。对于这些人，他将继续定期举行一对一的会议，并将继续组织一个教师系列研讨会，以帮助分享和产生研究想法。此外，他还将扩大每年3次的拨款审查和讨论会议，在这个会议上，初级和高级研究人员都可以在一个开放的论坛上审查个人研究人员的具体目标和研究想法。第二组学员通常由住院医师和研究员组成，他们的长期目标是成为神经肌肉疾病领域成功的以患者为导向的研究人员，但尚未确定具体的研究领域。对于这些人，Rutkove博士将采取更“亲力亲为”的方式，定期进行一对一的会议，并在确定潜在研究领域方面提供详细的指导。这群人也将是最大的受益者

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In this renewal of his mid-career investigator award in patient oriented-research, the candidate, Dr. Seward Rutkove, proposes to develop his mentoring efforts with young investigators in neurological research while continuing the pursuit of his long-term career goal of improving neuromuscular diagnostic techniques. Dr. Rutkove plans to mentor two specific groups of individuals, as he has been doing devotedly since his first K24 was funded in 2008. The first group of individuals consists of junior neurology faculty members, most of who work outside of Dr. Rutkove's subspecialty of neuromuscular disease. For these individuals, he will continue to hold regular, one-on-one meetings and will continue to organize a faculty seminar series to help share and generate research ideas. In addition, he will expand a 3X/year grant review and discussion meeting in which investigators, both junior and more senior, can examine individual researcher's specific aims and research ideas in an open forum. The second group of mentees generally consists of residents and fellows whose long- term goal is to become a successful patient-oriented researcher in neuromuscular disease, but who have not yet identified a specific area of research. For these individuals, Dr. Rutkove will take a more "hands-on" approach with regular one-on-one meetings and detailed guidance in identifying potential areas of research. It is also this group of individuals who will benefit most directly from Dr. Rutkove's proposed K-24-supported research in quantitative diagnostic ultrasound techniques for the evaluation of neuromuscular disease, since this area offers broad opportunities for new research directions and opportunities. Specifically, Dr. Rutkove's proposed research plan focuses on the development of a variety of innovative ultrasound-based tools for the assessment of muscle, including automated signal decomposition of the backscattered radiofrequency data, computer-assisted image segmentation, and volumetric, electrographic, anisotropic, and entropy-based analyses. These techniques will be applied to a broad group of adult subjects with neuromuscular disease, providing ample opportunity for mentees to both participate directly in patient-oriented research and to identify areas of research interest of ther own. The environment supporting this work is rich and includes the resources at the Department of Neurology at Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where Dr. Rutkove is based. In addition to these mentoring and research activities, during the funding period, Dr. Rutkove also plans on writing and publishing a guide for researchers interested in establishing a career in patient-oriented research, through Springer publishing. At the conclusion of the research period, Dr. Rutkove expects to have advanced the area of clinical neuromuscular disease research while helping launch the successful careers of a new set of clinical investigators.