“By creating we think, by living we learn” Patrick Geddes
Closing date: 10th February 2012
We seek to appoint one postdoc research assistant and one PhD student for an interdisciplinary, joint research project at the Universities of Dundee (School of Computing and Ninewells Hospital) and the University of Edinburgh (Clinical Imaging Research Centre and Centre for Population Health Sciences) and in collaboration with the University of Genoa, Italy (Department of Computer and Information Science).
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in economically developed nations, causing tens of thousands of premature deaths per year in the UK and presenting and estimated overall annual cost around £30bn. This is projected to rise in line with other well-publicised aspects of ill health associated with westernised lifestyles such as type-2 diabetes. Predicting with greater precision who is at risk totarget clinical interventions is a major goal in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity and its associated costs. Moving towards this goal depends on being able to integrate relevant biological and clinical information at multiple levels, and identifyingeasily accessed and discriminatory biomarkers is a vital requirement in this process.
There is mounting evidence that features associated with retinal blood vessels, which are easily observed, are early indicators of cardiovascular disease. However, manual assessment and measurement of retinal vasculature and other features is time-consuming and laborious, and seriously impedes the analysis of the large numbers of patients required to power the biomarker discovery process.
These issues are addressed by this project. The focus is VAMPIRE (Vasculature Assessment and Measurement Platform for Images of the REtina) , an interdisciplinaryinitiative co-ordinated by the co-investigators of this project, Prof Trucco (Univ of Dundee) and Dr MacGillivray (Univ of Edinburgh). VAMPIRE brings together 11 international centres from the UK, Italy, Singapore and the US. Collectively, a very substantial body of expertise and publications, and has been growing a software platform allowing efficient measurements of morphometric retinal parameters (vessel width, tortuosity, branching angles and fractal dimension).
Building on this background, the project aims to :
This post is for three years to work under the direction of Prof Emanuele Trucco within the VAMPIRE (Vascular Assessment and Measurement Platform for Images of the REtina) international initiative.
The RA will be based with the Computer Vision and Image Processing (CVIP) group in the School of Computing but will work in close collaboration with the University of Edinburgh VAMPIRE team collaborating on the project. The successful candidate will have a PhD in image processing (especially medical) or computer vision, or closely allied disciplines. He/she will be a good team player, ready to work within a research group driven by a collegiate, collaborative ethos, and an energetic, independent individual committed to research, with experience ofMATLAB and C++ programming under Windows, maintenance of software developed by a team, and of designing, implementing and testing vision algorithm. In addition, specific experience of retinal image processing and participation in joint projects, especially clinical studies, will be advantages.
The key tasks are to develop and implement novel, as well as improve existing algorithms for detection and quantification of retinal vascular features in fundus camera images; testing algorithms with substantial amounts of images; take an active role in technical project management, including reporting to and interfacing with partner, clinicians and image repository centres; and drive the generation of high-quality publications.
This post is for three years to work under the direction of Dr Tom MacGillivray at the Clinical Research Imaging Centre (CRIC) joint with the Wellcome Trust Clinical research facility, both of the University of Edinburgh.
The student will be based at CRIC but will work in close collaboration with University of DundeeVAMPIRE team collaborating on the project. The successful candidate will have a Master-level degree (2.1 grade at least) from a course providing training on image processing and computer vision He/she will be a good team player and a keen learner, ready to work within a research group driven by a collegiate, collaborative ethos, and an energetic, independent individual committed to research. He/she will havestrong programming and algorithm development skills (ideally in MATLAB and C++) under Windows, especially computer vision and image processing algorithm.In addition, specific experience of retinal image processing and participation in joint projects, especially clinical studies, will be advantages.
The key tasks are to develop and implement novel, as well as improve existing algorithms for detection and quantification of retinal vascular features in fundus camera images; testing algorithms with substantial amounts of images; contributing to reporting to and interfacing with partner and clinicians; and contribute to, and eventually drive, the generation of high-quality publications.
Applicants for the RA position - must apply online at the University of Dundee job site, www.jobs.dundee.ac.ukwhere details of the application procedure for this post and an official closing date will appear.
Applicants for both posts must email a full CV, a personal statement, and names, affiliation and email of three referees to Prof Emanuele Trucco (manueltrucco@computing.dundee.ac.uk Dr Tom MacGillivray (T.J.MacGillivray@ed.ac.uk)
The CVIP group is an internationally visible research unit including currently 3 academic staff, 3 postdocs and 5 PhD students working on image processing for medical and life sciences applications; human activity analysis for security, biometrics, biomechanics and animation; and non-textual image indexing and recognition. Our portfolio of applications spans medical image understanding, healthcare, the life sciences, image browsing and retrieval, human motion capture, surveillance and biometrics. Our research has been funded from a variety of sources including UK research councils, charities and Europe.
Recent and current projects include FABRIC, a major TSB project (£1.4M) on content-based image browsing and retrieval with the Victoria & Albert Museum, Liberty Art Fabrics and System Simulation Ltd.; two EPSRC projects on human body and action modelling for communication and animation; the development of cutting-edge instruments for ophthalmology and optometry with a market-leading UK company (OPTOS plc); work with the £30M Centre for Secure Information Technology in Belfast; and the recent €3M European Research Council project, CODIR. The group leads, with CRIC, the international initiative VAMPIRE, involving 11 international centres in the UK, Europe, the US and Singapore, of which this project is part.
Details and publications on VAMPIRE can be found at vampire.dundee.computing.ac.uk.
CVIP is part of the School of Computing, which offers an excellent, supportive and well-resourced environment for research. School research includes space technology, healthcare computing, argumentation and AI, computer vision, assistive technologies, and all aspects of inclusive design. The focus on applied research makes the School a vital part of the real-people / real-problems / real-world orientation of the University of Dundee. School research is organised in two areas, Human Centred Research and Intelligent Systems. Each has about 35 staff and current research funding of about £3.5M. In the 2008 research assessment exercise, 60% of our staff was world leading or internationally excellent (4* or 3*), and the overall score placed the School 4th amongst 12 in Scotland. The School has won over £10M in research funding between 2008 and 2010. Healthcare informatics and medical image processing, in which the CODIR project is placed, are internationally visible strengths of the School.
For further information visit www.computing.dundee.ac.uk.
CRIC is a partnership between the University of Edinburgh and NHS Lothian. It is based at the University's Queen's Medical Research Institute, Little France and has state-of-the art equipment to facilitate clinical research. Facilities comprise a 3T MRI scanner, a PET-CT scanner, a dedicated on-site cyclotron, and a CT scanner. CRIC is operated by world-leading scientists and radiological staff. It also features an Image Analysis laboratory which is equipped with computer workstations and specialised software packages and is staffed by Dr MacGillivray and colleagues (currently 1 postdoc and 1 PhD student), who have extensive experience in working with data from a variety of medical imaging modalities including retinal devices.
For further information visit www.wtcrf.ed.ac.uk/cric/cricdefault.htm
CRIC comes under the umbrella of the wider clinical research infrastructure in Edinburgh, overseen by the WTCRF. The WTCRF provides state-of-the-art facilities and an optimal environment for the conduct of clinical research. Researchers benefit from a broad range of central resources including the research governance infrastructure that assists investigators in meeting Good Clinical Practice standards. The success of the WTCRF in Edinburgh has been acknowledged nationally and is embodied in the report by the Academy of Medical Sciences which identifies Edinburgh's WTCRF as an exemplar Clinical Research Facility.
For further information visit www.wtcrf.ed.ac.uk
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