About Us

The Center for Advanced Imaging (CAI) contains the MRI and PET/CT facilities for the Department, as well as its Basic Research Group.

The American College of Radiology (ACR) has awarded the MRI and PET/CT programs in the Center a three-year term of accreditation after a lengthy evaluation process carried out by nationally recognized leaders in the specialty of Radiology.  The ACR awards accreditation to facilities for the achievement of high practice standards after a peer-review evaluation of the practice.  They assess the qualifications of the personnel and the adequacy of facility equipment.  Radiological examinations are performed on the five scanners housed in the CAI.  Upgrades ensure that the equipment has all the latest developments included.  Service and preventative maintenance provided by the manufacturers of the equipment guarantees the highest level of performance at all times.

The Department’s research effort is led by Dr. Raymond R. Raylman, Ph.D., Vice-chair for Research.  The research is multi-disciplinary, encompassing contribution from faculty members of the Departments of Radiology, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Physiology, Physics and Engineering.  This work is focused mainly on the development of new systems to produce positron emission tomography (PET) images.  Devices currently under construction include a dedicated Breast-PET/CT scanner, a pre-clinical PET/MRI scanner and a combined PET-EPRI pre-clinical scanner.  Furthermore, instrumentation-related oftware development (reation of data acquisition, image reconstruction and system simulation software) is performed by Gangadhar Jaliparthi and Pete F. Martone.  The research group also explores the use of MRI and PET to improve clinical care of our patients.  This work is performed by Drs. Rai, Marano, Carpenter and Hou.