Laboratory:
Center for Biomedical Imaging: The new MR center at NYUSOM is located on the ground floor of 660 First Avenue , three blocks north of the main hospital. This center houses three Siemens MR research systems: two 3 Tesla whole-body units, one with 32 channel TIM technology, and one 7 Tesla human unit. Adequate space is available for support staff, patient/subject management, , image analysis labs and a conference room. The total square footage is approximately 12,000 with an additional 4,000 square feet of research space, including electronics laboratory, is available in Bellevue Hospital .
The new 7 Tesla whole-body MR systems is maintained by the vendor under a service contract. This function will be coordinated with the NYU site engineer. Siemens has placed 3 Ph.D. level engineers and a master's level pulse programmer at NYU. Part of their job responsibility is to integrate themselves into the research projects and provide on site support for sequence development and point of contact access to the factory. It is in the best interest of both parties to keep these research systems state of the art so that cutting edge research is assured. There is presently a dedicated MR service engineer at NYU and Siemens will provide training for this individual to be able to support the R and D systems. NYU has a unique single vendor relationship with Siemens. Because of this, we will be secured access to the latest vendor hardware/software as well as provide a strong commitment for support.
CT Research Facility: Housed in the Center for Biomedical Imaging at NYUSOM, in the ground floor of 660 First Avenue , three blocks north of the main hospital, the CT research facility includes a dedicated 64-detector scanner. Adequate space is available for support staff, patient/subject management, image analysis labs and a conference room.
Micro MRI (µMRI) and Ultrasound Backscatter Microscopy (UBM): 600 sq ft of space in the Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) animal facility is dedicated for the UBM and µMRI scanners and surgery. A further 700 sq. ft. of laboratory space is available in the Skirball Institute. This includes separated dedicated spaces for electronics and UBM and µMRI instrumentation development, and molecular biology / histological analysis. The lab maintains equipment for transducer and RF coil fabrication and prototype instrument development, including a fume hood, vacuum oven, band-saw, precision drill press, micro-lathe and milling machine and state-of-the-art electronic test equipment (listed below). The lab is also fully equipped for the molecular and histological studies proposed, including dissection and compound microscopes, PCR machine, -20°C and –80°C freezers, temperature controlled water baths and incubators, gel ectrophoresis apparatus, and micro-centrifuges.
Nuclear Medicine: The oncopharmacological laboratory which is the central resource for performing quality control on radiolabeled antibody labeling is housed in 850 sq ft on the 5th floor of Tisch University Hospital . This laboratory is supervised by Dr. Leonard Liebes and is well-equipped for the performance of cell processing and immunofluorescent staining.
Cancer Center Radiochemistry Laboratory: The laboratory occupies about 250 sq ft on the second floor of the Clinical Cancer Center and coordinates with the oncopharmacology laboratory in developing new radiotracers or importing already developed technology for radiotracers to the NYUCC .
Clinical Nuclear Medicine : The Nuclear Medicine division consists of about 5000 sq ft on the second floor of Tisch Hospital . There are five imaging rooms equipped with a Siemens E-cam, an ADAC solus, an ADAC Vertex-plus, and an ADAC Cardio camera , all of which are dual-headed LFOV gamma cameras. There is also a treatment room, reading room, “hot” lab, satellite “hot” lab, and offices for professional and support staff. The Nuclear Medicine Hot Lab occupies approximately a total of 300 square feet on the second floor of Tisch Hospital .
Diagnostic Imaging Center at the NYU Clinical Cancer Center: The diagnostic imaging facility at the new NYUCC includes a state of the art Hi-Rez Biograph 6 (Siemens Medical Systems) which is a high resolution (FWHM 4.2 mm) LSO cr ystal dedicated PET integrated with a 6-detector CT scanner. The facility also includes plain radiography and bone mineral density equipment along with a “hot”lab and a radiochemistry laboratory (see research facilities).
The oncopharmacological laboratory, which is the central resource for performing quality control on radiolabeled antibody preparation and measuring HAMA, is housed in 850 sq ft on the 5th floor of Tisch University Hospital. This laboratory is under the supervision of Dr. Leonard Liebes and is well equipped for the performance of cell processing and immunofluorescent staining. It includes: Labguard laminar flow hood in a self-contained tissue culture room; incubators (2); Olympus viewing microscope, Zeiss high power microscope; Coulter ZBI cell counter and sizer; Elscint microviscometer; Beckman DU-7 scanning spectrophotometer; Beckman L5-50 ultracentrifuge; IEC refrigerated centrifuge; Beckman clinical centrifuge (non-refrigerated); Beckman liquid scintillation counter (LS 3,000); Beckman Bio gamma II gamma counter; Pharmacia power supply; Zenith Z-248 AT-PC; IBI mini and semiprep agarose horizontal electrophoresis units; Revco freezer; Kenmore refrigerator/freezer; UV illuminator; American Science Product pH meter; Schleicher and Scheull slot blot apparatus; Savant high speed micro/mini cooled centrifuge; Water baths (Fisher) (2); Lauda circulator bath; Mettler balance-HS4-AR; Microwave oven. The Becton Dickinson FACS III dual laser flow cytometer is a shared resource of the Cancer Center and is located in Dr. R. Basch's laboratory.
Clinical:
NYU Medical Center : The New York University Hospitals Center consists of several closely related clinical service organizations – these include the Tisch Hospital , the NYU Downtown Hospital , and the NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases. Its primary clinical service area, which includes lower Manhattan , and the adjacent areas of the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens , has a projected population base of nearly 2.5 million. The School of Medicine also has academic and clinical responsibility for New York City 's Bellevue Hospital that is immediately adjacent to the School. The Bellevue Hospital serves the indigent, largely minority population of New York . The School also has a close relationship with the Manhattan Veterans Administration Hospital , immediately adjacent to Bellevue .
The NYU Medical Center is a large urban-based facility with both in patient and outpatient units on the premises. The hospital has >700 beds and house staff in every specialty. In addition to a full complement of technologists, two full time clinical nurses in the unit ensure quality care of our patients. MRI studies are currently performed in the MRI unit of the Department of Radiology, NYU Medical Center . This facility has a full range of facilities for patients and staff and a large capacity that allows patients to be scanned at short notice. A new research imaging center (see above) is currently being constructed to house three dedicated research scanners. This site will include appropriate facilities for staff and patients. Standard facilities are available for pathological evaluation of samples.
NYU Hospitals Center has embarked upon a major modernization and expansion of its clinical facilities. NYU's plans for the future call for renovation of inpatient units within Tisch Hospital , the 704-bed centerpiece of clinical care at the Medical Center , as well as construction of a new clinical facilities building. The new facility will feature new inpatient units, operating rooms, recovery rooms, intensive care units, radiologic services, reception areas, patient holding rooms, family waiting areas, a Cardiac and Vascular Institute, and an expanded Emergency Services department. The clinical facilities building will also serve as the new home of Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, an internationally renowned facility for the treatment of adults and children with disabilities.
Clinical CT : The CT outpatient facility occupies 2000 sq ft of the Cooperative Care Building at NYU Medical Center and is presently undergoing renovation. In Tisch Hospital , clinical CT imaging is performed both on the second floor (1500 sq ft) and in the newly renovated emergency room equipped with a new 16-detector scanner (800 sq ft). Additionally in Bellevue Hospital , CT clinical services include emergency room (575 sq ft) and the third floor Radiology CT facility (3400 sq ft). Full-time nursing staff are available to monitor all inpatients. Clinical facilities include scanner areas with separate operator rooms, patient waiting areas, reading rooms, and offices for technical staff. For all patients, automated injectors are available to administer contrast material.
Clinical MRI : The MR facility occupies over 8500 sq ft of the Cooperative Care Building at NYU Medical Center . It consists of four separate scanner areas with separate operator and computer rooms, patient waiting area, three reading rooms, a laboratory for on-site engineering support, and offices for professional and technical staff. Full-time nursing staff are available to monitor all patients. An MR compatible monitoring device is available for all systems which provides blood pressure and pulse monitoring. For all patients, an MR-compatible power injector will be used to administer gadolinium contrast.
Clinical Nuclear Medicine : The Nuclear Medicine division consists of approximately 5000 sq ft on the second floor of Tisch Hospital . There are ten imaging rooms, a treatment room, a reading room, computer room, image processing room, wet lab, “hot” lab, physics lab, and offices for professional and support staff. The available instruments include two Toshiba Medical Systems dual headed GCA-7200A_DI SPECT-capable gamma cameras each controlled and interfaced to the local network by a SUN SPARC 20/75 workstation with 96 MB memory; three ADAC dual headed Pegasys based SPECT-capable gamma camera as follows: one Solus which is general purpose and also coincident detection capable (FDG 511 keV photons); one Vertex which is general purpose but configurable for cardiac work; one Cardio which is dedicated to cardiac scintigraphy. The three ADAC cameras are each attached to a Sun Ultra 1/170e computers with 128 MB of memory and Creator3D graphics cards. There are seven Sun Ultra 1/170e clinical workstations computers also with 128 MB of memory and Creator3D graphics cards which run both the ADAC and Toshiba clinical software. One of these computers serves as the database master for the ADAC image registry. All of the above computers run Solaris 2.5.1. There is one Sun SPARC 4/100 and one SPARC 20/75 workstation configured with SUNOS 4.4.1 which run the Trionix clinical software.
Animal:
Transgenic Mouse Facility: Mice are housed in Thoren individually ventilated cage systems in the (SPF) mouse facility in the basement of the Skirball Institute. Cathy Bernstein supervises the housing of the animals under veterinary direction. Anna Auerbach supervises the transgenic mouse core facility in the SPF facility under the direction of Dr. Alexandra Joyner, which has conisiderable experience in producing transgenic mouse strains. Surgery, UBM and µMRI imaging are performed in dedicated areas in the SPF facility.
Computer:
The Radiology image processing laboratory in Tisch hospital consists of four Sun Ultra10 computers equipped with 3DElitem6 graphics units and 1 GB of memory and 39 GB of disk space, all running Solaris 5.8. Additionally there is one HP 9000/C180 workstation with 512 MB of memory, V48 graphics card, 108 GB of disk space, and an fx40 40 GB optical disk jukebox; and an HP 9000/712 workstation with 192 MB of memory and an fx40 40 GB optical disk jukebox, both running HPUX 10.20. The image processing laboratory provides a complete on line archive of all the digital images produced in the Nuclear Medicine division since 1990. There is DDS3 tape drive available for disk backup.
Additionally, there is a complete radiology information system (RIS) within the Radiology Department which is based on IDXRad software, Compac PC's, and run the Windows/NT4 operating system. It has MUMPS database which runs on a DEC APLHA VMS computer. This system is interfaced directly to the hospital information system (HIS) as well as to the teleradiology system (Stentor). Images from the CT and MRI scanners may be sent via the hospital ethernet to the Stentor master server (a PC) and from there to dedicated viewing workstations (PCs) both inside and outside the department. The department also has a PC based (Window NT4) Vital Images image processing workstation for viewing, and making movies of, CT volume sets.
The MRI facility has one dedicated Sun Ultra10 workstation with 384 MB of memory running Solaris 5.7 and equipped with a Creator3D graphics card and an HP9000/735 workstation with 256 MB memory running HP-UX 10.20 and attached to a 40 GB optical disk jukebox.
The µMRI and UBM lab is equipped with 3 Pentium III PC computers for collecting and analyzing data, a Macintosh G4 and a Silicon Graphics workstation that are available for image archiving, display and analysis. In addition, the MR lab has two Pentium III PC computers for console control, physiological monitoring and offline image display and analysis. All of these computers are interfaced to the standard Ethernet that links all computers in the Skirball Institute. In addition, the Skirball Institute has a number of shared imaging tools, including flatbed and film scanners, slide makers, high resolution and color printers, Fuji pictographer silver based printer, and professional production-level video system.
Network:
At New York University , the use of computers for all applications is widespread. We have a campus-wide network linking all parts of the University with access to off-campus sites through an OC12 connected to an OC48 connection provided and maintained by New York University . We have fiber optic cable throughout the enterprise. We run ethernet over fiber from the routers to the major connection points and 10baseT CAT5 and Cat7 to the local computer jacks. This is a fully routed network which currently runs at 100 Mbs and is prepared to upgrade to 1 Gb. There is also a connection to Internet II available through the main campus. There is an FDDI GB switch connecting the medical center network complex to the main University campus. There is a redundant CheckPoint Firewall configuration between the hospital medical center and the rest of the NYU enterprise network. IPSec is used for all off-campus communications behind the firewall.
ll the computers and digital image source machines in the Department of Radiology are network capable and are connected to the hospital network and thence to the University and nationwide internet through a Cisco routers which allow access control to these computers behind the medical center firewall. Local control is through 100 Mbps Xylan switches. Radiology provides via ethernet, images to many clinical departments and researchers located in various places throughout the enterprise and off-campus as needed.
Other (Machine Shop, Electronic Shop):
The NYU physics department has a fully equipped machine shop and machinists for fabrication of UBM transducer housings, RF coil formers, and research devices for animal and human positioning/handling systems. Shared equipment and lab space include a new Leica cryostat, a fully equipped histology lab in the Developmental Genetics Program of the Skirball Institute for histological analysis of mouse samples, a fully equipped tissue culture room for maintaining cell lines and preparing primary cells for injections, and numerous microscopes for analyzing histological data and photographing sections.
Major Equipment:
CT : There are currently a total of 8 CT scanners available at NYUMC. These include: one Siemens Sensation 16 multirow scanner in the emergency room at NYUMC-TH, one Siemens Somatom Plus 4 Volume Zoom CT scanner (NYU Medical Center); 3 GE HiSpeed Advantage CT scanners (1 each at NYU MS Tisch Hospital (NYUMS-TH), Faculty Practice Outpatient Office (NYUMS-FPO) and Bellevue Hospital (NYUMS-BH); 1 GE CTI (1 sec) Scanner (NYUMC-TH); 1 GE CTI (sub-second) Scanner (NYUMC-FPO); and 1 GE HiSpeed FXI scanner (NYUMC-BH). An additional CT scanner is currently being installed in the emergency room at NYUMC-BH (Philips multislice CT). Current plans call for upgrading all CT scanners presently located at NYUMC-TH and NYUMC-FPO to 4 and 16 row Siemens multi-detector scanners within the next 2 years. Specific technical features of these scanners include: subsecond (0.375 – 0.4 sec) scan capability; bolus tracking software (Care bolus), dose reduction software (CARE dose), as well as both prospective and retrospective cardiac gating capability. All scanners are currently equipped with ceiling mounted Medrad power injectors.
MRI : Currently two Siemens Avanto (1.5T, maximum gradient strength 45 mT/m), one Siemens Sonata (1.5T; maximum gradient 40mTm -1 ; slew rate 200Tm -1 s -1 ) and one Siemens Quantum (1.5T; maximum gradient 30mTm -1 ; slew rate 125Tm -1 s -1 ) are available for research. All systems are capable of echo-planar imaging (EPI) and spectroscopy. Systems have a full array of phased array RF coils and are capable of EPI and spectroscopy.
Additionally, at the affiliated Bellevue hospital, there is one Siemens Vision (1.5T, maximum gradient strength 25mTm -1 , slew rate 100Tm -1 s -1 ) and in an outpatient facility a low field open magnet.
All machines are attached to a NYU Medical Center local area network, providing fast access to image files. The imagers are controlled by processing consoles based on Windows NT computers equipped with permanent magnetic disk storage, optical laser disc units and CD-ROMs for image archiving, and dedicated array processors.
Nuclear Medicine: The available instruments include two Toshiba Medical Systems dual-headed GCA-7200A_DI SPECT-capable gamma cameras, each controlled and interfaced to the local network by a SUN SPARC 20/75 workstation with 96 MB memory; and three ADAC dual-headed Pegasys based SPECT-capable gamma camera as follows: one Solus which is general purpose and also coincident detection capable (FDG 511 keV photons), one Vertex which is general purpose but configurable for cardiac work, and one Cardio which is dedicated to cardiac scintigraphy. The three ADAC cameras are each attached to Sun Ultra 1/170e computers with 128 MB of memory and Creator3D graphics cards. There are seven Sun Ultra 1/170e clinical workstations computers, also with 128 MB of memory and Creator3D graphics cards, which run both the ADAC and Toshiba clinical software. One of these computers serves as the database master for the ADAC image registry. All of the above computers run Solaris 2.5.1. There is one Sun SPARC 4/100 and one SPARC 20/75 workstation configured with SUNOS 4.4.1, which run the Trionix clinical software.
