NUCLEAR MEDICAL AND IMAGING SCIENCES TECHNICAL COMMITTEE (NMISTC)

The leadership of the Nuclear Medical and Imaging Sciences Council (NMISC) has changed with the retirement of Ronald Jaszczak, as the chair. For the next two years I will resume the responsibilities as the NMISC Chair; Tom Lewellen was elected vice-chairman at the annual meeting and he will become the chairman in 2006. The entire council would like to thank Ron for his excellent and enthusiastic leadership during the past two years. I would also like to thank Craig Levin, who will resign as NMISC secretary, for all his work for the council.

The NMISC held its Annual Meeting on October 24, 2003 from Noon-2pm at the Doubletree Hotel—Columbia River in Portland, OR. The meeting was called to order by Ronald Jaszczak, NMISC Chair.

Members and newly elected members present included: John Aarsvold (new), Magnus Dahlbom, Margaret Daube-Witherspoon, Lars Eriksson, Ron Huesman (new), Marijana Ivanovic, Tom Lewellen (new), Steven Meikle, Bradley Patt, Charles Stearns, Christopher Thompson (new), Larry Zeng, Ben Tsui (new), Sibylle Ziegler. Members Absent: Paul Marsden and Gary Wong. Other attendees at the meeting included: Simon Cherry, Alberto Del Guerra, Edward Hoffman, Joel Karp, Ron Keyser, Paul Kinahan, Michael King, Robert Miyaoka, Craig Levin, and Ron Jaszczak.

Paul Kinahan (2002 MIC Program Chair) reported on some of the key statistics of the 2002 MIC meeting that was held in Norfolk, VA. This was the first year that MIC surpassed NSS in registrants: MIC: 484; NSS: 361. 35 regular oral session papers and 266 poster session papers were presented. Other educational activities in conjunction to the main program included two workshops on Compton and Breast Imaging, and an education outreach program aimed towards local high school teachers, given at the Jefferson lab.

Mike King (2003 MIC Program Chair) reported on some of the key statistics of the 2003 NSS/MIC meeting. The total attendance was 1362 (compared to 845 in 2002). A total of 434 abstracts were submitted (322 in 2002), 24 were rejected (25 in 2002). 52 MIC oral session papers and 354 poster papers were presented. Presentations by Roderick Pettigrew, Benjamin Tsui, Edward Hoffman, William Moses, Harrsion Barett; and Steve Webb were given in three different plenary sessions. This was also Steve Derenzo’s first year as Chair of the short courses, which was very successful.

Alberto Del Guerra (2004 NSS/MIC General Chair) reported on the 2004 meeting at the Ergrife hotel (900 rooms) just outside of Rome. The goal is to attract more than 1,200 attendees. All activities will occur at the conference hotel. The organizing committee is in the process of generating student travel awards. More information regarding the meeting can be found at: http://nss-mic-rtsd-2004.df.unipi.it
Tom Lewellen (2005 NSS/MIC General Chair) gave a preview of the 2005 NSS/MIC meeting at Conquistador Resort in Puerto Rico. The hotel has 5,200 sq ft of exhibit space and 14,000 sq. ft. of poster space. The committee has secured funds from DOE and NIH for student travel awards.

Graham Smith (2006 NSS/MIC General Chair) reported on the 2006 NSS/MIC meeting at the Town and Country Resort in San Diego. Key administrative positions on the organizing committee, such as Treasurer and Local Arrangements, are members from previous committees. John Aarsvold will be the MIC Program Chair: Bo Yu will again work as the web-master.

The case for a location in Germany for the 2007 NSS/MIC meeting was presented by Uwe Bratzler. The possible locations discussed were Berlin, Hamburg, or the Aachen-Jülich- Bonn area, which all have universities and/or national labs nearby that are interested in hosting the meeting.

Margaret Daube-Witherspoon, Chair of NMISC Awards-Fellow Subcommittee, reported that the Young Investigator Medical Imaging Science Award went to Habib Zaidi. Nominations are solicited for IEEE Fellow (due March 15, 2004) and NPSS awards (due May 15, 2004). Information for these awards may be found at www.ieee.org/npss under “Awards”.

Craig Levin reported on the successful 2002 Breast Imaging workshop, organized by Martin Tornai and Craig Levin, and funded by NIH and the Susan Komen Foundation. Based on the very favorable feedback form the attendees, the organizers are planning to repeat the workshop at the upcoming 2004 Rome meeting.

The annual meeting concluded with the reappointment of Margaret Daube-Witherspoon as the Chair of the Awards-Fellow subcommittee; Larry Zeng will replace Magnus Dahlbom as the Chair of the communications subcommittee and NMISC web-master; Steven Meikle was voted in as the new NMISC secretary starting in 2004.

Excerpted from the Minutes of the Annual Meeting and submitted by Craig Levin, Secretary, NMISC, who can be reached at the Nuclear Medicine Division, School of Medicine, University of California/VA Medical Center, San Diego, CA 92161; Phone: +1 858 552-7511; Fax: +1 858 552-4387; E-mail: clevin@ucsd.edu. The minutes from the meeting can be found at: http://ewh.ieee.org/soc/nps/nmisc.

Magnus Dahlbom, Chair of the NMISC, can be reached at the Division of Nuclear Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095; Phone: +1 310 206-8273; Fax: +1 310-206-4899; E-mail: mdahlbom@mednet.ucla.edu.