Department of Radiology

Research

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Research

The Department of Radiology is actively engaged in both clinical and pre-clinical imaging research.

The Department of Radiology is actively engaged in both clinical and pre-clinical imaging research. Clinical research largely follows divisional interests with strong collaboration across many departments and schools.

Advancing clinical and translational research to benefit patients is at the core of our research program. The Department of Radiology is actively engaged in both clinical and pre-clinical imaging research. Clinical research largely follows divisional interests with strong collaboration across many departments and schools.

Physician examining an image

What are the scientific goals?

  • To provide resources for clinical/translational research that is innovative and cutting edge.
  • To create standardized clinical research process that is cost-effective and time sensitive.
  • To regulate research methods to help ensure valid findings.
  • To provide a standard of practice that ensures transparency to the sponsor and investigators.
  • To provide education and mentorship for faculty and staff.

About Our Research Programs

The Department of Radiology’s research mission is to provide resources for clinical and translational research that is innovative and cutting edge, while educating and mentoring. Not only do our faculty members strive to regulate research methods to help ensure valid findings, but they also create standardized clinical research processes that are cost-effective, time sensitive and transparent.

The Department of Radiology has more than 40 active clinical studies. Current research projects span all radiology subspecialties from neuroradiology to interventional and emergency radiology.

Basic Science Research

With regard to pre-clinical imaging research, the Department maintains a state of the art molecular imaging facility which offers a wide array of advanced animal imaging including autoradiography, micro PET, microCT, ultrasound, optical and radiography. The group at this facility is actively engaged in the development of biologically-targeted radiotracers that can uniquely target various disease processes. The Director of the Molecular Imaging Center is Dr. Peter Conti and the Laboratory Manager is Mr. Grant Dagliyan.

Labs & Facilities

Pioneering sophisticated imaging techniques

Radiomics Lab

The USC radiomics group focuses on exploring methods of extracting quantifiable features from radiologic images. Medical images are not just pictures but are in fact data. Therefore extracting and mining quantitative information using high throughput analysis can add supplemental information to the traditionally used visual qualification.

These features can be combined with clinical,laboratory, genomic, and epigenetic data to improve identification of diagnostic and prognostic features. Radiomics data are in a mineable form that can be used to build descriptive and predictive models relating image features to phenotypes or gene-protein signatures. Our group has developed workflows and algorithms to extract hundreds of quantifiable features from standard of care medical images.

4D Quantitative Imaging Lab

USC 4D Quantitative Imaging Center at Keck offers a new service for patient care and research that provides state of the art digital image processing and quantitation. This facility at the Keck Medical Center of USC and Keck School of Medicine enables 3D and 4D (time resolved dynamic and perfusion) reconstruction of Ultrasound, CT and MR images. This application of technology provides sophisticated and quantitative evaluation of imaging data.

USC Molecular Imaging Center (MIC)

The mission of the USC Molecular Imaging Center to promote the use of imaging to:

  • rapidly and effectively translate developments in cellular and molecular biology, chemistry, neurosciences, physics, computer sciences, engineering and instrumentation into improvements in cancer patient care
  • facilitate further advances in the understanding of the molecular basis of this disease
  • train future investigators that will have the requisite multidisciplinary skills to effectively lead the expansion of molecular medical techniques.

There is an ever-increasing demand for new and more sophisticated imaging probes for experimental research and clinical application, especially with the escalation of molecular medicine approaches to therapy design. Our vision is for the USC MIC to have a comprehensive imaging program focused on the development of new radiotracers and non-radioactive biological probes for use in interdisciplinary biomedical research and imaging.

Research Grand Rounds

  • There are 10 major sub-divisions in the department: Abdominopelvic Imaging, Cardiothoracic Imaging, Musculoskeletal Radiology, Neuroradiology, Nuclear Medicine, Vascular & Interventional Radiology, Women’s Imaging, Ultrasound Imaging, Emergency Radiology, and Molecular Imaging.
  • A minimum of 10 sessions will be conducted each year. Each division will have 1 session for presenting their research work.
  • Each session will have a total of 3 research presentations (1 faculty & 2 residents/fellows or 2 faculties & 1 resident/fellow) of 10-15 mins/each. Research presentations by faculty and residents will be focused on on-going research projects in the department and the papers/abstracts presented at various national and international conferences.
  • Apart from presenting work on individual research projects, the division chief will be required to give a presentation on their divisions accomplishments on research front in 1 year time frame (secured grant funding, grants currently in review, abstracts, peer-reviewed publications, etc.). This will allow us to keep a better track of each division’s progress on the research front.
  • Radiology Research Support group will give a 5 minute presentation towards the end of each session about the upcoming grant funding opportunities, newly funded investigator and industry initiated projects in the department, and information about abstract submission & other deadlines.
  • Multidisciplinary Research: We encourage each division to invite faculty from other departments (based on the topics of the presentation) to facilitate new intra and inter-programmatic research activities

View our Events Calendar for Grand Rounds Schedule.