The Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) has announced the finalists for the 6^th Annual Toshiba Young Investigator Award (YIA).

The YIA program, sponsored by an educational grant from Toshiba America Medical Systems, supports the professional and clinical development of radiology residents and cardiology fellows within five years of completing a training program.

Applicants submitted an abstract and mini-manuscript of 1,000 words concerning research related to the technical and clinical advancement of cardiovascular CT. This year’s finalists and their topics are:

• Marcio Bittencourt, MD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, for “Coronary CT Angiography for Prediction of All-Cause Mortality;”
• Marcelo Nacif, MD, PhD, Radiology and Imaging Sciences – National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, Bethesda, Md., for “USA 3D Left Ventricular Extracellular Volume Fraction by Low Radiation Dose Cardiac CT: Assessment of Interstitial Myocardial Fibrosis;"
• Daniel Obaid, MD, University of Cambridge, U.K., for “Identification of vulnerable coronary plaque using single and dual energy CT – verification against histology and VH-IVUS;”
• James Otton, MBBS, MBiomedE, St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, for “Four-dimensional image processing of myocardial CT perfusion for improved image quality and noise reduction;” and
• Stefan Sawall, MD, Institute of Medical Physics, Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany, for “Low-Dose Cardiac- and Respiratory-Gated Myocardial Perfusion Imaging of Free-Breathing Mice.”

Each finalist will give an oral presentation at the 7^th Annual Scientific Meeting, July 19 - 22, in Baltimore. The finalists will be granted a free year of SCCT membership, a $1,000 travel stipend and free registration at the meeting. Two winners will be selected to have their manuscripts made eligible for priority peer-reviewed publication in the Journal of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography.