A study-centric database model for organizing multimodality images and metadata in animal imaging research facilities

Research images and findings reports generated during imaging-based small animal imaging experiments are typically kept by imaging facilities on workstations or by investigators on burned DVD's. There usually lacks structure and organization to these data content, and are limited to directory and file names to help users find their data files. A study-centric database design is a fundamental step towards imaging systems integration and also a research data grid infrastructure for multi-institution collaborations and translational research. This paper will present a novel relational database model to maintain experimental metadata for studies, raw imaging files, post-processed images, and quantitative findings, all generated during most imaging-based animal-model studies. The integration of experimental metadata into a single database can alleviate current investigative dependency on hand-written records for current and previous experimental data. Furthermore, imaging workstations and systems that are integrated with this database can be streamlined in their data workflow with automated query services. This novel database model is being implemented in a molecular imaging data grid for evaluation with animal-model imaging studies provided from the Molecular Imaging Center at USC.