"Dr. Gabor Fichtinger of the Queen's School of Computing has been awarded a Level 1 Research Chair in Medical Imaging by Cancer Care Ontario. This award is a recognition of the high quality of Dr. Fichtinger's contributions in the area of Biomedical Computing. The Research Chair is also the first in health care research to be awarded to a researcher in the Faculty of Arts and Science at Queen's University by an external organization." (Selim G. Akl, Professor and Director, School of Computing, Queen's University)

Cancer Care Ontario Announces 2010 Research Chairs

Dr. Gabor Fichtinger of the Queen's School of Computing is one of six Ontario researchers to receive funding to further cancer research over the next five years under Cancer Care Ontario's Research Chairs Program. The Program, funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, is designed to attract new leading scientists to Ontario and support outstanding scientists already working in the province. The Program focuses on quickly turning research findings into improvements in cancer services and clinical care for patients.

Dr. Fichtinger, named a Level 1 Research Chair in Medical Imaging, achieved a worldwide reputation in needle-based interventional oncology system development through his prior work at the Johns Hopkins University, one of the world's most renowned medical institutions. He was recruited to Queen's in 2007 and given the mandate of creating an advanced technology development program for interventional oncology. Dr. Fichtinger will work on creating a reusable platform for image-guided and robotic cancer interventions.

In the past two-years, CCO's Research Chairs program has funded the research of 13 scientists. The 2010 awards will build Ontario's research capacity in three priority areas - cancer imaging, experimental therapeutics and health services research.