Current Grants

NIH R01-HL122484: Probing Dose Limits in Cardiac SPECT with Reconstruction and Personalized Imaging

Project period: 5/1/2014 – 4/30/2019   

The major goal of this project is to determine to what extent the current administered activity to patients for cardiac SPECT imaging can be reduced, thus reducing their irradiation.

NIH K25 EB019032     “Body Surface Tracking of Complex Motion with Obstructed Viewing in Hybrid Imaging." PI Clifford Lindsay

Project period: 9/01/2015 – 5/31/2019

The goal of the grant is to develop methodologies for tracking the motion of the surface of the patients body without usage or markers placed on the body.

NIH, No R01-EB022092, Combined Multi-Pinhole and Fan-Beam Brain SPECT. M. A. King, PI, 5/18/2016-2/29/2020.

The goal of this grant is to develop a low-cost collimator / reconstruction combination to enable higher spatial resolution / sensitivity imaging of the new imaging agent I-123 DaTscan for Parkinson’s disease for use on existing 2-headed rotating gamma-camera SPECT systems.  The collimator combination will consist of a multi-pinhole (MPH) collimator on one head designed to image with high resolution and sensitivity the striatal region of the brain, and a fan-beam collimator on the second head to enable combined quantitative imaging of the entire brain. The tasks to be accomplished are to complete the design of the MPH collimator, finish development of combined fan-beam and MPH reconstruction, fabricate the MPH collimator, and test the MPH collimator and combined reconstruction in phantom and patient studies.

NIH, No. R01 EB022521, AdaptiSPECT-C: A Next-Generation, Adaptive Brain-Imaging SPECT System for Drug Discovery and Clinical Imaging, M. A. King, contact PI, L. Furenlid, MPI, G. Zubal, MPI,

Project period: 9/1/2016 - 8/30/2021.

The goals of this grant are to design, fabricate, and test a brain imaging dedicated multi-detector SPECT system for usage in drug discovery and clinical imaging ranging from neurological, to psychiatric, to oncological applications. The system will image the entire head volume without the need for rotation. By being able to alter the number and size of the pinhole apertures viewing the brain, the system will be able to adapt to provide high-sensitivity dynamic imaging as well as high-resolution static imaging with the patient in place in the imaging position. Reconstruction software with correcting for system spatial resolution, attenuation, scatter, penetration and motion will be developed to enable absolute activity quantification and determination of kinetic parameters. Depth sensing near-infrared camera imaging will be employed to track patient motion and align existent CT slices from which attenuation maps will be derived. Continuing mechanical and electrical safety analysis of system will be performed to assure safe human subject usage. Prior to human subject imaging testing of all acquisition modes using phantoms will be performed. Imaging of volunteer patients will be performed in years 4 and 5 to serve as basis for design improvements to be proposed for the completion of the project in the second half of the project period.