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Neuroimaging analysis center expands
By LOIS BAKER
Contributing Editor
An expanded Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center, an internationally renowned UB research center that works with clinicians and researchers around the world to advance the understanding of diseases of the brain, spinal cord and optic nerve, was unveiled last week in Buffalo General Hospital.
The center is an arm of the Jacobs Neurological Institute, which is the Department of Neurology in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. It leases space in Buffalo General through a partnership with Kaleida Health, which invested $10 million in creating the new, larger space for the BNAC.
The state-of-the-art, 10,000-square-foot renovated space was sealed off for the past 30 years; it formerly housed an incinerator and animal research facilities and had become home to pigeons. The architectural firm Smith + Accordo Architects of Rochester developed the plan for the dramatic transformation of the space.
The BNAC is headed by Robert Zivadinov, a leader in the field of neuroimaging and UB associate professor of neurology. Zivadinov will lead one of two imaging sessions at ECTRIMS, the most prestigious international conference dedicated to the research of multiple sclerosis, to be held next month in Prague, Czech Republic.
The center, Zivadinov explained at a press conference to unveil the expanded center, "strives to extend the boundaries of current knowledge about neurological diseases and disorders through innovative research techniques and the application of the most advanced bioinformatics resources."
"These state-of-the art expanded facilities will allow us to provide important new information on multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and other devastating neurological conditions that we hope will be of great benefit to patients," he said.
James R. Kaskie, president and CEO of Kaleida Health, said its $10 million investment in the expanded center "is another example of our commitment to improve patient care in Kaleida Health facilities.
"The partnership involved in the center also highlights the important clinical relationship between the University at Buffalo and Kaleida Health," Kaskie added. "Together, we are bringing state-of-the-art technology directly to our patients."
David L. Dunn, UB vice president for health sciences, described the research that will be performed in the new center as "another outstanding example of how the University at Buffalo Academic Health Center and its School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences are closely collaborating with Kaleida Health and other health system partners here in Buffalo."
"Through such synergistic collaborations involving conducting clinical trials and providing clinical care, new knowledge of the underlying basis of neurological disease will be developed that will lead to improved treatments for patients and," said Dunn, "perhaps the promise of a cure for these debilitating conditions."
Michael E. Cain, dean of the UB medical school, said: "It is clear that to fulfill its potential of excellence in research, education and clinical care, and to best serve the residents of Western New York, UB's medical school and its partners must attract and retain top faculty working in state-of-the-art research and clinical programs.
"The Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center is an excellent example of world-class faculty working in a first-rate facility to address medical challenges that affect thousands of people," Cain added. "The research capabilities of the center will help us achieve the full potential of the vision all of us share for health education, health science and health care in Buffalo and Western New York and beyond."
Frederick E. Munschauer III, professor and chair of the UB Department of Neurology, added: "Dr. Zivadinov and the staff of the BNAC at the JNI have created new imaging techniques that greatly enhance our ability to detect and measure the effects of MS on the brain. We are very excited that these advances will lead directly to the rapid development of new drugs for MS—drugs that may even help MS patients improve."
The major work of the BNAC involves storing, manipulating and extracting useful information from tens of thousands of high-resolution, three- and four-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures of the brain, spinal cord and optic nerve for research studies, clinical trials and individual patient analyses.
These images are able to show the process of atrophy under the disease's onslaught and link stages of atrophy with physical and cognitive symptoms. This information allows physicians to make a more accurate diagnosis and prognosis of disease. The research based on the BNAC's analysis of MRI images has led to several new insights into understanding the pathophysiology of multiple sclerosis.
The BNAC is affiliated with more than a dozen institutions, nationally and internationally, and has participated in more than $8 million in research projects involving international collaboration with a variety of clinicians and scientists. The center is world-renowned for its advances in MRI research and publications.
To meet the demand for its services and research activities, the BNAC has developed its own dedicated computer network capable of storing more than 11 terabytes of data. State-of-the-art dual Xeon processor servers provide the capacity necessary for detailed analyses of different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and a gigabyte backbone provides fast access for all terminal workstations, even under heavy-load conditions.
This internal network is connected through secure tunnels and multiple firewalls to MRI centers worldwide, allowing the BNAC to receive MRI studies from centers around the world and analyze them moments after they arrive.
Local MRI scans are performed on state-of-the-art, General Electric 1.5 and 3.0 Tesla MRI machines at the new Buffalo Niagara MRI Center, also located in Buffalo General Hospital. The BNAC is one of the few centers in the United States designated as a General Electric Research Partner, which allows the center to run conventional and nonconventional sequences on the MRI machines for research protocols and for individual clinical studies.
Technical and research personnel manning the center include two imaging directors, three certified clinical neuroimagers, four physician neuroimagers and database managers, seven research assistants, a chief research assistant, two MRI physicists, a systems administrator, two computer scientists, a study coordinator and a biostatistician. External consultants support the BNAC in a variety of different fields.
A cornerstone of the BNAC approach is the conviction that quantitative MRI measures can and should be used by physicians to aid in diagnosis/prognosis and in decisions regarding disease-modifying therapy. In the field of multiple sclerosis in particular, the BNAC has identified four quantitative MRI variables that are reliable markers of disease progression, and is creating individual quantitative MRI reports on a daily basis. Quantitative analysis allows for the detection of very small changes in disease progression that cannot be observed clinically.