|
     |
|||
 |
||||
| The Medical
Science Division (MSD) supports fundamental research and technology
development in medicine, particularly in the fields of nuclear
medicine, imaging sciences and neurosciences.
The
goal of the research and development programs conducted
by the MSD is to utilized current advances in science
and technology to develop innovative diagnostic and
treatment solutions to critical problems in human health.
The DOE is uniquely capable of advanced technological
solutions to medical problems because of its unsurpassed
expertise in the physical sciences, particularly in
physics, chemistry, engineering and computational sciences.
The
current programs of the MSD are an outgrowth and logical
extension of the original charge of the Atomic Energy
Commission (AEC), “to exploit nuclear energy
to promote human health.” From the production
of a few medically important radioisotopes in 1947,
to the development of production methods for radiopharmaceuticals
used in standard diagnostic tests for millions of patients
throughout the world, to the development of ultra-sensitive
diagnostic instruments, e.g. the PET (positron-emission
tomography) scanner, the DOE medical sciences program
leads progress in the field on nuclear medicine. Today,
the MSD program has incorporated recent developments
in radiochemistry, genomic sciences and structural
biology to usher in a new era in mapping the human
brain, and is using highly specific radiotracers and
instruments to more precisely diagnose neuropsychiatric
illnesses and cancer.
The
DOE National Laboratories have extraordinary expertise
in development of both large instruments (neutron and
light sources, high field magnets, lasers, and supercomputers)
as well as very small instruments (micro-engineering
labs on a chip). These highly advanced technologies
provide new solutions to previously intractable medical
problems. Coordinated programs in the DOE National
Laboratories, Universities and industry are directed
to developing an artificial retina to restore sight
to the major causes of blindness, development of clinical
instruments to image a moving patient, and using techniques
developed in astronomy, visualize cells in the far
reaches of the eye without distortion. |  |
Enabling the Blind to See
An Artificial Retina, being developed by a
multidisciplinary team of scientists, could help patients with
macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa
regain useful sight....
More
Imaging the Awake Animal Brain
A combined team from BNL, LBNL, and SUNY Stony Brook are
developing miniature mobile PET and MRI scanners for brain
imaging in mice and rats without anesthesia.
More
|
||