Spring Semister 2008
Fridays, 12 noon - 2:00 p.m.
1001 Stellar-Chance Labs

Course Directors:
Ari Borthakur
ari@mail.mmrrcc.upenn.edu, tel: 573-8482; B1 Stellar-Chance Labs
Sergei Vinogradov
vinograd@mail.med.upenn.edu, tel: 898-6382; 901C Stellar-Chance Labs

Course Description:
This course will focus on modern imaging technologies used in biological research and medicine.  The technologies covered will include CT, Ultrasound, MRI, PET, SPECT, and Optical Imaging.  Our goal is to provide coverage of principles and enable students to make sound judgement about applicability of imaging methods to biological problems that they will encounter in the future.  Simply put, our goal will be reached if after the course, students will feel confident navigating through, e.g. a meeting on molecular imaging, generally understanding most of its topics.

We plan to review physics behind each imaging method, principles of instrumentation, general areas of application, and to discuss selected examples of modern cutting-edge applications. The course will be structured as a "directed" journal club. Per each session (1.5 hours), two students will be given assignments to prepare 20-30 minute presentations for the rest of the group. The first student will explain the general principles of the method (based on general text books and reviews), and another will discuss a selected paper on application. It is expected that each student will have an opportunity to give 2-3 presentations per course, both on fundamentals and on applications. The presentations will be followed by discussions. Everyone will be expected to read the literature selected and actively participate in the discussions.

At the first seminar, the course directors will discuss the presentation format and schedule the times for each topic. Any suggestions, including selection of topics, will be welcomed at this point.