Wallapak Tavanapong and Johnny Wong have worked for the past three years conducting research in advanced retrieval and analysis of videos from endoscopic procedures for important clinical content. The two computer scientists are collaborating with a medical doctor at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, and another computer scientist at the University of Texas at Arlington. The project is expected to provide a number of benefits to medicine: post-procedure review, training tool, and performance review. An impact could be felt in Iowa and in a few years the technology may well spread all over the world. In February 2006, Wong and Tavanapong receive $75,405 from the Grow Iowa Values Fund to establish a software company at the ISU Research Park. The company will develop and market the software to the medical industry. The startup company has a patent pending. Wong and Tavanapong also received $25,000 from the ISU Research Foundation (ISURF) to upgrade the hardware and software of their video capturing system to a commercial grade system. Its impact is also being felt on campus. There are currently five graduate students working on the project with plans to add additional graduate and undergraduate students to the team.
Last year, the duo received a three-year, $578,850 grant from the National Science Foundation, which is also funding portions of the project at both the Mayo Clinic and UT-Arlington. In addition, the two computer scientists received a $25,000 grant from the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology of Mayo Clinic Rochester for one year to conduct research and development of the first quality measurement software system for colonoscopy.
For details, see recent article at: Iowa State awards $1 million for research promoting Iowa economic development
Computer Science faculty receive Grow Iowa Values Funding
February 13, 2006