The University has announced that it has partnered with Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University and Methodist Hospital to found the Institute for Biomedical Imaging Sciences.
"The major goal is to have faculty members interacting and joining capabilities," IBIS Director King Li, who is chair of the radiology department at Methodist Hospital said.
UH professor of computer science and electrical engineering and Director of the UH Biomedicine Lab Ioannis Kakadiaris has been involved with the IBIS as a committee chair.
"We are establishing a unique research environment, with as many as 50 scientists working together from the three institutions that already are aligned through academic affiliations," Kakadiaris said in a release. "We are thus positioning ourselves to be on the forefront of discoveries in biomedical imaging."
The partnership between all three institutions has been in the works since November 2006 as a joint venture to advance medical imaging technology, such as ultrasound, CAT scans or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to diagnose diseases at an earlier stage and prevent them from becoming lifethreatening.
"(We are) leveraging people and institutions to do joint research and (obtain) better research funding," Li said.
IBIS has managed to secure donations and targeted grants to fund research, according to Li.
All three institutions bring different areas of expertise to the partnership, Li said.
"UH is strong in image processing, (while) Methodist can perform patient examinations and has the ability to do translation research, and Cornell has a well-established medical school," Li said.
