Biophysical Sciences and Medical Physics

Graduate Program in Biophysical Sciences and Medical Physics

Welcome to the Web Site for the Biophysical Sciences and Medical Physics graduate program at the University of Minnesota. The program offers both Masters and Ph.D. degrees with several areas of specialization that combine the basic sciences of physics and biology. The strongest specialty area is that of Medical Physics applied to the field of Radiology. There are 35 faculty representing several University departments in this program. Below is a list of topics to browse.

Programs of Study

The Graduate Program in Biophysical Sciences and Medical Physics is interdisciplinary, with faculty members having primary appointments in departments that include radiology, physics, engineering, computer science, physiology, dentistry, genetics, and biochemistry. Programs lead to the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees.

Students concentrate in research areas that include molecular biophysics, medical imaging, magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy, radiobiology, radiation therapy physics, and mathematical biophysics and computation. A limited number of students prepare for employment as hospital-based medical physicists through a program that includes opportunities for course work, laboratories, and directed study to provide experience in areas such as purchase specification, acceptance testing, quality assurance, and radiation safety. The majority of students prepare for research careers in the basic sciences.

Candidates for the M.S. degree may pursue either thesis or nonthesis plans of study. The thesis plan is considered suitable for students with full-time employment if their thesis can be related to their work assignments. The nonthesis plan is more suitable for students planning to work in government or hospital settings where technical knowledge is more germane than research experience. Students in the nonthesis plan perform a research project under the direction of a faculty member and present the work to their faculty committee in an oral exam.

Candidates for the Ph.D. take preliminary written exams at the end of the first year of study or as soon as possible after completing the core course sequence--topics in physics for medicine and biology. An oral preliminary exam focuses on the plan for thesis research and the student's grasp of related information and is taken by the fall of the third year of full-time registration or its equivalent.

The program reports to the Basic Science Policy and Review Council of the Graduate School and receives a small amount of funding in the form of block grants from the Graduate School. However, graduate student support is almost exclusively obtained through grants and contracts held by the member faculty.

Research Facilities

Students have access to personal computers and workstations (SGI, SUN, DEC,) as well as the facilities of the Minnesota Supercomputer Institute. Separate research facilities exist for the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, the Center for Immunotherapy, Radiobiology, Radiation Therapy, Diagnostic Radiology, and the School of Dentistry.

Student Group

Over the past five years there has been an average of 26 graduate students in the program - 20 doctoral students and 6 masters candidates. Women comprise 23 per cent of the current student population; international students, 31 per cent. Four to six new students are admitted each year.

Financial Aid

The majority of students receive some sort of financial aid, typically a 50 percent time research assistantship with full tuition waiver. The sources of funds are NIH awards, departmental grants and contracts, and graduate school block grants.

For details on need-based awards, students should contact the Office of Student Financial Aid, 210 Fraser Hall, University of Minnesota, 106 Pleasant Street, SE, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455-0422 (telephone: 612-624-1665).

Applications as early as January for the following fall quarter are encouraged.

Cost of Study

Tuition for the various categories of Graduate School
registration and fees are listed in the Class Schedule,
published each term. Summer session tuition and fees are
listed in the Summer Session Catalog. Schedules and catalogs
may be accessed on-line at www1.umn.edu/commpub/gradindex.html

Residence-Because the University is a state institution,
Minnesota residents pay lower tuition than nonresidents. To
qualify for resident status, students must reside in Minnesota
for at least one calendar year before the first day of class
attendance. For more information, contact the Resident
Classification and Reciprocity Office, University of
Minnesota, 240 Williamson Hall, 231 Pillsbury Drive S.E.,
Minneapolis, MN 55455 (612/625-6330).

Reciprocity-For residents of North Dakota, South
Dakota, Wisconsin, or Manitoba who qualify for reciprocity
privileges, tuition rates are lower than for nonresidents and
are, in some cases, comparable to resident rates. For more
information, contact the Resident Classification and
Reciprocity Office (see above).

Correspondence and Information

Application may be accomplished on-line at:
www.grad.umn.edu/application.html

Additional information concerning admissions may be
found at:
www.grad.umn.edu/admissions/

For specific graduate program information, contact:

E. Russell Ritenour
University of Minnesota School of Medicine
Department of Radiology, Box 292 UMHC
420 Delaware Street Southeast
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
Telephone: 612-626-0131
Fax: 612-626-1951
Electronic mail: riten001@tc.umn.edu

THE FACULTY AND THEIR RESEARCH

Dean E. Abrahamson, M.D., Ph.D. Analysis of energy policy, environmental implications of various technologies, climate change, occupational health.

Eugene Ackerman, Ph.D. Complex systems simulation, artificial neural networks, parameter sensitivity of models, Monte Carlo techniques, electronic communication.

Dwight L. Anderson, Ph.D. Structure and assembly of bacterial viruses.

Vincent Barnett, Ph.D. Correlation of mechanical response and molecular dynamics of muscle proteins, studies of the biochemical and physiological interaction of myosin and actin and the elasticity of titin. Techniques include electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy (EPR), measurement of muscle stiffness, and force generation.

Victor A. Bloomfield, Ph.D. Ion-induced transition in DNA, hydrodynamic theory, quasi-electric light scattering, dynamics of concentrated biopolymer solutions.

Bianca M. Conti-Tronconi, M.D. Neurobiochemistry and neuropharmacology.

Ralph DeLong, Ph.D. Robotics as applied to reproducing mandibular movement, three-dimensional digitalization of anatomic structures and computer graphics, wear of dental materials and oral anatomic structures, computer modeling of the masticatory system.

William H. Douglas, Ph.D. Robotics as applied to reproducing mandibular movement, three-dimensional digitalization of anatomic structures and computer graphics, wear of dental materials and oral anatomic structures, computer modeling of masticatory system.

Stanley M. Finkelstein, Ph.D. Hemodynamic impedance properties of peripheral vasculature, respiratory and cardiovascular simulation, monitoring of long-term care for chronic diseases, biomedical signal processing.

John E. Foker, M.D., Ph.D. Myocardial metabolism.

Michael G. Garwood, Ph.D. Magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy methods, the design of improved radio frequency pulses, pulse sequences to localize spectroscopic signals to specific tissues or organs of interest, fast imaging, application of these methods to investigate brain tumor metabolism in animals and humans.

Richard A. Geise, Ph.D. Radiation dose determination, particularly bone dosimetry from high-dose interventional procedures; evaluation of radiologic equipment performance, particularly mammography and computer tomography systems; dosimetry and performance evaluation of shock wave lithotripters, particularly by measurement of cavitation.

Bruce J. Gerbi, Ph.D. Ionization chamber response characteristics in high-energy proton and electron beam, electron contamination determination in high-energy proton beams, deposition of radiation dose for obliquely incident photon beams.

Bruce Hammer, Ph.D. Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy.

Bruce E. Hasselquiest, Ph.D. Computer modeling of imaging in nuclear medicine, including the effects of attenuation and scatter in single photon emission computer tomography; simultaneous dual isotope imaging in nuclear medicine.

Russell K. Hobbie, Ph.D. Radiological physics.

Xiaoping Hu, Ph.D. Acquisition, reconstruction, processing, and visualization of medical imaging data and application of medical imaging techniques, with emphasis on magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy.

Faiz M. Khan, Ph.D. Dorimetry of electron and photon beams radiotherapy treatment planning, portal electron imaging.

Christopher C. Kuni, Ph.D. Medical image analysis, mammography, nuclear medicine, electronic circuit design.

Merle K. Loken, M.D., Ph.D. Development and evaluation of radiopharmaceutical and instrumentation (including use of computers) for establishing new procedures in the practice of nuclear medicine.

Rex E. Lovrien, Ph.D. Enzymology, calorimetry, thermochemistry of biochemical reactions, development of new legends and methods for separations, protection, confirmation control, cocrystallization of proteins.

Scott M. O'Grady, M.D. Mechanisms and regulation of electrolyte transport across epithelial tissues, role of electroneutral cotransport and exchange mechanisms in vectorial salt and water transport in epithelia, regulation of cell volume and intracellular pH.

Richard E. Poppele, Ph.D. Mammalian muscle spindles, mechanical properties of muscle, the nature of the transduction mechanism, encoding of muscle receptor information within the central nervous system.

Stephen J. Riederer, Ph.D. The physics and engineering of diagnostic medical imaging systems, especially magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). High-speed MR image acquisition and reconstruction, vascular MRI and MR angiography, compensation for motion during MR image acquisition.

E. Russell Ritenour, Ph.D. Performance evaluation of radiologic imaging systems, specific absorption rate calculation for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound-induced mutation in mammalian cells, ultrasound dosimetry.

Andreas Rosenberg, Ph.D. Dynamics of protein structure, studies by methods such as fluorescence quenching and isotope exchange kinetics, structure-function relationships in red cell cytoskeleton, studies by partial reconstruction of membrane structures.

Otto H. Schmitt, Ph.D. Voluntary cardiorespiratory synchronization, mutual impedivity spectrometry, bioelectrodes, effects of plasma arc demodulation in electrosurgery, automated electrosurgery, multidimensional phase space displays, extra low frequency electric fields.

Chang W. Song, Ph.D. Biological effects of radiation, vascular function in tumors and normal tissues, radiosensitization and radioprotection, microelectrode method to measure tissue pH and p02, ion transport through the cell membrane.

David D. Thomas, Ph.D. Spectroscopic studies of molecular dynamics in energy transducing ATPase of muscle; myosin, actin, muscle fibers, sarcoplasmic reticulum, calcium transport, ATPase; electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), phosphorescence, fluorescence.

Fatih Uckun, Ph.D. Immunotoxin production for use in anticancer drugs, leukemia detection methods, bone marrow transplantation trials, treatment of AIDS, radiation biology of hematopoietic cells, leukemia biology, molecular immunology.

Kamil Ugurbil, Ph.D. Development of magnetic resonance methods and their applications in vivo for obtaining physiological, functional, anatomical, and biochemical information noninvasively; functional mapping in the human brain; cardiac bioenergetics.

Warren J. Warwick, Ph.D. New models of the function of the lung, noninvasive measurements of physiologic functions, integration of computer technology in the practice of medicine, mucous transport in the airway, water balance in the lungs, total body water and body composition analysis, allometric effects seen in physiologic tests during growth.

Clare K. Woodward, Ph.D. Protein structure and dynamics, protein folding, construction and physical-chemical characterization of protein variants produced by site-directed mutagenesis, NMR, hydrogen exchange, colorimetry, protein engineering, computer-based molecular modeling of proteins, molecular graphics of proteins.