NIH Record - National Institutes of Health

NICHD’s Basser To Deliver Annual Chen ‘Tech Transfer’ Talk, Apr. 29

Dr. Peter Basser portrait
NIH senior investigator Dr. Peter Basser

NIH senior investigator Dr. Peter Basser will deliver the 15th annual Philip S. Chen Jr. Distinguished Lecture on Innovation and Technology Transfer on Friday, Apr. 29 at 10 a.m. ET via https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=44974

The title of his talk is “Using Water Migration to Probe Brain Structure and Architecture.”  

Basser heads NICHD’s section on quantitative imaging and tissue sciences and serves as associate scientific director of the Division of Translational Imaging and Genomic Integrity. He has the unique distinction of being the only current NIH principal investigator elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

The Chen Lecture was established in 2006 by the NIH deputy director for intramural research and the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) on the occasion of Chen’s retirement after more than 40 years of service to NIH. 

Chen established OTT to implement the provisions of the Federal Technology Transfer Act. He formulated the guiding principles upon which technology transfer functions today, including the creation of CRADAs or Cooperative Research and Development Agreements.

Basser studies relationships between function and structure in living tissues, particularly how their microstructure, hierarchical organization, composition and material properties affect their function or dysfunction. To do this, he and his lab have developed several non-invasive imaging methods that allow them to observe various transport phenomena in tissue, which provide a link between structure and function. The most widely used method is diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging, or DTI. Basser is its principal inventor.

For details about the Chen Lecture and its history, visit: https://go.usa.gov/xuxrA.

The NIH Record

The NIH Record, founded in 1949, is the biweekly newsletter for employees of the National Institutes of Health.

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Assistant Editor: Eric Bock
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Staff Writer: Amber Snyder
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