Monroe Carell Jr., center, helps patients and donor, August Gallo of New Orleans, unwrap one of four “Sabriya’s Castles of Fun” units last week at the hospital. Photo by Daniel Dubois
Training grant to foster cross-school collaboration
Vanderbilt University has been awarded a training grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that will foster a collaboration between the Radiology and Biomedical Engineering departments.
The grant, worth $1.37 million over a five-year period, is a T32 training program that will support six graduate students to undertake Ph.D. studies in Biomedical Imaging. John Gore, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Institute of Imaging Science, will be the director of the program.
“There are lots of training grants, but this is the first for predoctoral research in imaging given by NIBIB (National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering). They have funded four new predoctoral training grants in Biomedical Engineering this year, and this one was the only one dedicated to imaging,” he said.
NIH training grants are given to eligible institutions to develop or enhance research training opportunities for students who are selected by the institution and are training for careers in specified areas of biomedical, behavioral and clinical research.
Students pursuing the program will have opportunities to participate in world-class imaging research led by the faculties in Biomedical Engineering, Radiology, Radiological Science and other programs.
Not only will this grant provide six graduate students an opportunity to work in Imaging Science, the students will also be offered support for the first two years as Research Assistants, so they may have time to decide where they want to do research.
“This is particularly valuable because it means we can compete for the best students and allow them to explore different areas of imaging prior to settling on a research topic. It will be very valuable to allow students to work with faculty without encumbering their research grants,” Gore said.
“This award will be extremely helpful to us in attracting highly qualified predoctoral students for the Biomedical Engineering and related programs,” said Tom Harris, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of Biomedical Engineering.
Because this training grant will provide cross-school collaboration between the Radiology and Biomedical Engineering departments, the faculties are anticipated to reach an even closer relationship.