Frank De Stefano will be starting his senior year in the Fall of 2016 at the University of Iowa studying Biochemistry and Molecular Sciences. As an undergraduate, he has worked frequently with Nick Koehn in the assistance of animal model studies. These studies, which primarily focus on lung nodules and other types of lung diseases, include computer tomography (CT), nuclear imaging, and histopathology. These animal models are effective in nodule characterization for early response treatment and more accurate diagnosis. To date he has helped Johanna Uthoff with her SURF 2015 (Student Undergraduate Research Fair) presentation involving segmentation tools for CT lung cancer assessment. Currently, Frank's primary research in the lab involves studying the genetic disease Neurofibromatosis Type-1(NF1). He is involved with a collaborative project in the lab in which he will be studying the phenotype of a porcine NF1 model. Through the use of multi-modality clinical medical imaging techniques (computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging) he is able to assess disease phenotype in these animals, and draw correlations to retrospective human data. Frank will be involved in the the retrospective data collection from NF1 patients and extracting image based features from the retrospective data cohort. Along with imaging, he will also be exploring the biochemistry behind this disease to determine any biomarkers involved with early diagnosis.

• J. Uthoff, S.K.N. Dilger, F. De Stefano, N. Koehn, J.C. Sieren, "Survey of Semi-Automatic Segmentation Tools for Computed Tomography Lung Nodule Assessment", American Thoracic Society (ATS), ID# 10926, 2016

• C.M. Sloan, J.C. Sieren, J.D. Newell, Jr., J. Sieren, M. Shirk, C. Vidal, S. Hogue, F. De Stefano, "Comparison of Low and Ultra-Low Dose Computed Tomography Protocols Through Quantitative Lung Airway Assessment", American Thoracic Society (ATS), ID# 12396, 2016

• E. Hammond, F. De Stefano, S.K.N. Dilger, E.A. Hoffman, J.D. Newell, Jr., J.C. Sieren, "Multi-level Registration of Multi-modality and Longitudinally Acquired Thoracic Images for Lung Assessment in a Swine Exposure Model", American Thoracic Society (ATS), ID# 5059, 2016

• N. Koehn, S.K.N. Dilger, J. Uthoff, E. Hammond, F. De Stefano, M. Muralidharan, E.A. Hoffman, J.D. Newell, Jr., R. Sanchez, J.C. Sieren, "Longitudinal Comparison of Four Mathematical Prediction Models of Solitary Pulmonary Nodules Imaged on Computed Tomography", American Thoracic Society (ATS), ID# 8135, 2016