Dr O'Dell, Walter
University of Florida
Department of Radiation Oncology
Assessing Lung Vasculature Development and Application to Early Preterm Gestation Patients
Research Focus
During gestation, a fraction of babies will be born prematurely and may have insufficient development of certain organs, leading to chronic health problems. Babies born prematurely are at risk for chronic lung diseases, caused by insufficient development of the lungs. The research focuses on comparing lung vasculature between pre-term babies and full-term babies through CT scan analysis. CT scans are taken throughout the patient's life to possibly correlate vessel counts with chronic lung diseases caused by preterm birth.
Project Responsibilities
I am responsible for analyzing CT scan datasets of each patient and record vessel count numbers. CT scan datasets are ran through the imaging software, ImageJ, which ultimately produces a three dimensional model of the lung vessels. This can be used to quantify the lung vasculature. I am also responsible in storing and interpreting the data and suggesting ways to optimize the code for more accurate measurements. I have previously committed over one hundred hours to this project over the past two years, and will continue to work on it throughout this year in the hopes of publishing our work by next spring.
