Research Protocol Consultations

Every research study differs in its data requirements, endpoints and analyses. The Biomedical Imaging Resource Core is involved with many different types of studies and provides expert consultation and training to investigators as they develop and refine their research protocols.

Investigators planning a study or writing a grant involving imaging are encouraged to work with the core to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of different image analysis methods; the unique imaging capabilities at Mayo; and how the core's services can contribute to the successful completion of the study.

Study design considerations

• Inclusion and exclusion criteria for imaging (animal or human)
• Image modality selection
• Image acquisition protocols
• Analytics to summarize the results

Image analysis considerations

• Techniques for segmentation
• Methods for registering multimodal or multiple time point data
• Tools for measurement
• Process workflow issues

Training

• Analyze software system (for interactive interrogation of medical image data)
• MATLAB (for extensive computation of medical image data)
• Programming libraries for developers such as A Visualization Workshop (AVW), Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit (ITK) and Visualization Toolkit (VTK)
• Low-level programming languages such as C, C++, Tcl/Tk and Python