Are you one of those harboring less than fond memories of high school
biology dissections?
A new project at UCSD and Scripps Institution of Oceanography may
help you reassess those squishy days of frogs and formaldehyde.
Researchers at Scripps and UCSD’s Keck Center for Functional
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) are creating a Digital Fish Library,
an online catalog of fish from Scripps’ Marine Vertebrate Collection.
Scientists involved in the five-year project will use new MRI technology,
in conjunction with novel data analysis and visualization methods,
to penetrate soft body tissue and provide 3-D images of physiological
structures.
“The idea is to image the internal anatomies of the entire range of fishes,” says
Phil Hastings, a Scripps professor and curator of the Marine Vertebrate Collection.
Project director Lawrence Frank, professor of radiology at the
UCSD School of Medicine, who leads the biomedical applications
program at the Keck fMRI
Center,
says the project will further push development of MRI technology.
In other words, whatever way you slice it, it’s a good thing. 
Contributors to Making Waves: Mario Aguilera, '89, Marnette Federis, '06, Beverly Gallagher, '98, Raymond Hardie and Inga Kiderra.
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