CIBR and the Academy hosted their 7th tour of the imaging labs at the NIH campus in Bethesda on March 4. Representatives from the Alliance for Aging Research, American Association for Cancer Research, Association for the Advancement of Science, Research!America, MITA, the Lung Cancer Alliance, and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences attended. Additionally, legislative staffers such as a member of Rep. Martin Heinrich’s (D-NM) staff attended the briefing and had the opportunity to speak directly to Director Pettigrew.
Roderic Pettigrew, PhD, MD, Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), gave a presentation on research currently underway at the NIBIB. Dr. Pettigrew’s presentation emphasized the cutting-edge research currently in the pipeline, including research funded by the NIBIB’s Quantum Grant Program, established “to make a profound improvement in health care”.
Bradford Wood, MD, Chief, Interventional Radiology Research, DRD/CC, gave a presentation about the interventional radiology research being conducted at the Clinical Center at NIH. He highlighted the increasing interactions between image, drugs, and devices in improving patient care. Novel techniques allow drugs to be targeted at tumor cells, which increases their effectiveness and minimizes the recovery time for the patient. In addition, he demonstrated how images from different modalities, performed before surgery, can be combined to create a composite picture for more accurate procedures.
Henry Eden, MD, PhD, Deputy Chief NIBIB Laboratory of Bioengineering and Physical Science (LPBS) gave an overview of the NIBIB Intramural Research Program, explaining the many projects in the pipeline. Terry Philips, PhD, ScD, Chief, Nanoscale Immunodiagnostics Laboratory, LPBS, led a tour of his Nanoscale Immunodiagnostic Laboratory, where participants viewed firsthand the equipment and procedures used to perform immunodiagnostic analysis. Dr. Philips explained “lab on a chip” immunoassays and showed the minute size of the chips involved. One application of the technologies developed in his lab is to diagnose premature babies, whose tiny size necessitates that only a small amount of blood is drawn for analysis.
