National Imaging Facility Annual Scientific Meeting 2023
The National Imaging Facility Annual Scientific Meeting (NIF ASM) will be held from Wednesday 9 – Friday 11 August 2023.
We invite members and collaborators from across the National Imaging Facility Network and esteemed guests to join us as at the event which will highlight world-leading expertise, cutting-edge technology and emerging discoveries from across our broader community.
From breakthrough advanced imaging techniques to transformative applications in human, preclinical and frontier imaging, radiopharmaceuticals and data, the NIF ASM 2023 is an opportunity to engage in discussion, participate in workshops and showcase science that is underpinned by NIF expertise and infrastructure.
Program
Wednesday 9 August: NIF community workshops
In 2023, NIF will host a community workshop day to facilitate the dynamic exchange of knowledge and promote collaboration within the network and our partners. Most workshops are open to the national imaging community via registration through Eventbrite.
Who: Australian imaging community
Where: Melbourne Connect and Zoom
About the workshops:
National Coordination MRI Workshop
(By invitation only)
Wednesday, 9:30am – 10:30am
The National Coordination Workshop will provide an opportunity for those working in MRI across the NIF network to connect and discuss ‘how we can move toward a more harmonised and coordinated MRI network’. In this session we will provide [i] an update on the consolidated results from the 2023 National Coordination MRI Workshops, [ii] discuss key aspects of future national coordination initiatives, and [iii] identify a preliminary scope of work for the group for the upcoming year.
Inaugural NIF PET Fellow Network Workshop
Wednesday, 10:30am – 5:15pm
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The purpose of this hybrid workshop is to share experiences and knowledge around PET imaging protocols and pipelines developed at different NIF nodes. More importantly this workshop aims to bring together PET physicist and radiochemists to discuss the current challenges and future opportunities for collaboration.
MR Harmonisation and QA workshop: Insights from MD Anderson Cancer Centre
(By invitation only)
Wednesday, 11:00am – 12:00pm
During this workshop, insights from the MD Anderson Cancer Centre – one of the world’s leading cancer centres, will be provided by A/Prof. Christopher Walker (Department of Imaging Physics), A/Prof. Joshua Yung (Department of Imaging Physics), and Brandy Reed (Manager – Diagnostic Imaging Division). The presentations will focus on the development, implementation and continued quality assurance program at MD Anderson. Discussion topics during the workshop will include:
• Acceptance tests required for the ACR Accreditation Program
• Acceptance testing of new equipment
• Maintaining records and performing QC
• Support and quality control resources
Australian Imaging Service: Roadmap and Growing the Federation
Wednesday, 12:00pm – 1:00pm
The Australian Imaging Service (AIS) is a national platform for secure imaging data management, analysis, informatics, and machine learning. Our mission is to increase research reproducibility and drive the adoption of innovative but trusted analysis techniques. This symposium will outline where we are today and where we are going in the next 3 years. It will also include a session from Flywheel demonstrating their new Flywheel Exchange platform for international data findability and sharing, interoperable with AIS and Flywheel Enterprise deployments.
Point-of-Care-MR Workshop
(By invitation only)
Wednesday, 12:00pm – 1:00pm
The purpose of this workshop is to present the progress of the NIF POCEMR project and discuss the requirements for the next phase of the project.
The Future of MEG in Australia
Wednesday, 2:00pm – 4:00pm
This symposium details the importance of MEG in brain research, the frontiers of MEG, and a project being conducted by the Swinburne and Macquarie nodes that aims to integrate their MEG instruments to initiate a national scale MEG network (‘MEG-NET’). It finishes with a panel discussion on the use of MEG to study traumatic brain injury and concussion. Panel members will include both MEG and TBI/concussion experts.
Low-Field MRI Workshop
Wednesday, 2:30pm – 4:00pm
The Low-Field MRI Workshop will provide an overview of low-field MRI (<1T). It is an opportunity to hear from and discuss with industry about their products, and present preliminary data from NIF’s Point-of-care MRI network.
Australian Electrophysiology Data Analytics PlaTform (AEDAPT) and Neurodesk: Environment for Imaging and Electrophysiological Data Analysis
Wednesday, 2:30pm – 4:00pm
This workshop will provide a look at the AEDAPT project and Neurodesk platform, a portable, flexible and scalable data analysis environment for reproducible imaging and electrophysiology data analysis. Topics covered will include getting started, core features, the research software tools available and integrations with other systems
Designing and running pipelines with the Australian Imaging Service (AIS)
Wednesday, 4:00pm – 5:00pm
This workshop will introduce participants to the AIS pipelines framework, and demonstrate how to install and run integrated pipelines on XNAT projects. It will also explain how to design new pipelines and submit them to the central AIS pipeline repository so they can be deployed across the AIS network.
MR-NET: image harmonisation and quality assessment for a 3T MRI network
Wednesday, 4:00pm – 6:00pm
MR-NET is a NIF initiative to create a network of 3T MRI scanners, to promote imaging harmonisation across sites and facilitate multi-site MRI studies. This workshop will give an outline of the need for harmonisation across Australia and an overview of the various areas of work the NIF nodes have undertaken to achieve this. First, we’ll present progress using targeted sequences for the brain, lung, liver, and cardiac from the NIF nodes leading these investigations for harmonised MRI acquisition protocols, including 3D-T1 volumetric brain imaging and liver fat quantification. Last, we will discuss options for quality assurance (QA) and phantom options for MRI with the aim of improving cross-scanner accuracy and longitudinal stability.
Preclinical Data Automation and Transfer – Bruker Pilot Study
Wednesday, 5:00pm – 6:00pm
This workshop will focus on preclinical data automation and transfer, and will include presentations resulting from consultation across the NIF network. The workshop will also provide an opportunity for NIF informatics fellows to engage with Bruker users from the network.
NIF Thematic Group Meeting: Molecular Imaging and Radiochemistry
Thursday, 9:00am – 10:30am
NIF Radiographers Working Group
(By invitation only)
Thursday, 3:30pm – 4:30pm
This workshop will provide an opportunity for MRI Radiographers working across the NIF network to connect and discuss NIF initiatives for which Radiographers are critical to their success. In this session we will provide [i] an update on the consolidated resulted from the National Coordination MRI Workshop, [ii] discuss key aspects QA & QC programs for large-scale projects and [iii] identify a preliminary scope of work for the group for the upcoming year.
NIF Thematic Group Meeting: Human Imaging
Thursday, 11:00am – 12:30pm
NIF Thematic Group Meeting: Animals, Plants and Materials
Thursday, 1:30pm – 3:00pm
Friday 11 August: NIF Scientific Symposium
Who: Public
Where: Ian Potter Auditorium, Kenneth Myer Building, University of Melbourne
Program, registrations and more information here.
