Building on its commitment to advance academic research through high- performance computing technology, Sun Microsystems has selected Switzerland's Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich (ETHZ) as a Center of Excellence (COE) in Biomedical Research. The National Center of Competence in Research for Computer Aided and Image Guided Medical Interventions (NCCR Co-Me), hosted by ETHZ, is utilizing Sun's high-performance computing systems and graphics solutions to aid in the promotion of a new model for medical interventions and, ultimately, patient care.

The focus of the NCCR is to develop, integrate and validate enabling technologies for advanced computer-aided and image-guided systems that will assist the medical community in surgical procedures. It is the goal that these medical interventions will support the complete patient treatment process from diagnosis, therapeutic planning and simulation via intra-operative action to postoperative care, monitoring and documentation. During the first work phase of the Center of Excellence, researchers will be focused on the development of a highly realistic VR simulator system for hysteroscopy.

Similar to flight simulators, virtual and augmented reality technology offers an appealing way to provide adequate training for surgical procedures without risks and direct patient involvement. Due to the enormous complexity of the systems to be simulated and the high demand for computational resources, Sun's high-performance solutions are central to providing the necessary compute capacity to enable this research. Currently, the NCCR is utilizing Sun FireTM V880 servers and Sun BladeTM 2000 workstations. The NCCR team will also be participating in Sun's upcoming December workshop on application parallelization, which will provide instruction on improving application performance.

"Utilizing Sun's reliable and scalable HPC solutions, we're able to provide an optimal framework for the efficient and sustainable development of cutting-edge technologies for the simulation of large complex biomedical systems," said Dr. Gabor Szekely, director of NCCR Co-Me. "Our work represents the future of patient care and we're committed to working with Sun to more fully utilize the emerging technologies in high-performance computing and high-performance graphics to further our research efforts."

"Sun's COE program is advancing critical academic research in fields from e-learning to biomedical simulation -- and reaches across the globe," said Klaus Landl, sales and business development manager of Switzerland. "The selection of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology exemplifies the principles of the Sun COE program -- utilizing technology innovation in academic research that brings real results. The research in biomedical simulation that the NCCR Co-Me is undertaking is critical to improving patient care." [...read more...]

		fullsource
Print Email Current Profile Archive Blog Generate newsletter