The same medical technology used to image brain tumors and torn knee ligaments is now taking the field of marine biology to a new dimension by allowing anyone with Internet access to examine fish as never before.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego's Keck Center for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography have been awarded a National Science Foundation grant to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to create a high-resolution, three-dimensional, online catalog of fishes from Scripps's Marine Vertebrate Collection, one of the world's most comprehensive and valuable libraries of preserved fish specimens.
"This project will augment the Scripps Marine Vertebrate Collection by using a new tool and a new way to present information about fishes," said Philip Hastings, Ph.D., professor and curator of the Scripps Marine Vertebrate Collection. "It's part of our general effort to make the collection more available to a wider audience."
Project director Lawrence Frank, Ph.D., professor of radiology at the UCSD School of Medicine--who leads the biomedical applications program at the Keck fMRI Center--said that the project will further push development of MRI technology for unique applications in humans as well as other species.
"This project also shows the growing role of cutting-edge imaging and computer technologies in increasing our access to information about not only marine biology, but biodiversity and global ecology as well," said Frank.
The five-year, nearly $2.5 million Digital Fish Library project will support development and application of new MRI technology that, in conjunction with novel data analysis and visualization methods, penetrates through soft body tissue to provide 3-D images of physiologica
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16-Mar-2006