Key Dates

 

Related Announcements

None.

Issued by

National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)

Purpose

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering intends to promote a new initiative by publishing a multi-agency funding opportunity to support collaborative centers per the NSF’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) model, focusing on the development of novel, dynamic, and tissue mimicking optical imaging phantoms, as well as testing, validation, and dissemination of these phantoms through an industry-academic partnership. This Notice of Intent to Publish (NOITP) is being provided to allow potential applicants sufficient time to develop meaningful community engagement, collaborations, and NIH consultations in preparation for the submission of responsive projects.

The IUCRC funding opportunity is expected to be published in Spring 2024.

Research Initiative Details

Optical imaging phantoms are needed to address an important gap area in repeatability, reproducibility, quantification, and accelerating regulatory (FDA) approval of medical optical imaging devices. The anticipated demand by the broader basic science and clinical research communities will provide an incentive for and generate particular interest to a cadre of allied medical device industrial partners to join this effort. The goal of the initiative is to promote productive research, development, and dissemination of standardized and reproducible tissue-mimicking phantoms for advancing quantitative imaging.

Strong partnerships among academia, national laboratories, government, and industry to develop, validate, and disseminate phantoms will ultimately:

• Bring quality control and standardization to the fast-growing medical imaging device market.
• Reduce the costs for developers and facilitate regulatory approvals.
• Accelerate innovation, production, and translation of medical devices toward clinical use.

The NIBIB is currently supporting the NIBIB/NIST imaging phantom library in which phantoms are made available, as a public resource, to the medical device development community. It is anticipated that the IUCRC center will have a significant impact on advancing quantitative optical imaging by sharing and disseminating optical phantoms the center develops.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Afrouz Anderson, PhD
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)
Telephone: 301-496-4558
Email: afrouz.anderson@nih.gov