The 2018 NSS-MIC Short Course program in Sydney offers nine full-day courses on a diverse range of topics in nuclear science and medical imaging. All courses are run by experts in their respective fields and address both theoretical foundations and practical examples.
The program on offer this year includes popular courses from previous years in addition to brand new courses on Organic Electronics and Detectors and the Principles, System Design and Applications of PET-MRI in Preclinical and Clinical Imaging. We encourage you to make the most of the Short Course program to diversify your background knowledge and research interests, update your skills, or simply refresh your memory.
The Short Course schedule is designed to enable logical pairing of well-matched courses that allows participants to build their knowledge base – for example, Biomedical Imaging Fundamentals (SC3) provides an excellent introduction to the field for students and newcomers and pairs well with Image Analysis & Statistics (SC9) and/or Medical Image Reconstruction: Theory and Practice (SC6).
This year the Short Course program runs from Saturday 10th – Monday 12th November, thus enabling all attendees to take part in the NSS and MIC Joint Sessions on Tuesday 13th Nov.
For more information, please contact:
Michael Lerch
Short-Course Co-Chair (NSS-Topics)
e-mail: mlerch@uow.edu.au
Andre Kyme
Short-Course Co-Chair (MIC-Topics)
e-mail: andre.kyme@sydney.edu.au
This one-day course is intended to introduce physicists and detector specialists to the fundamentals of integrated circuit front end design.
The class begins with a discussion of low-noise signal processing and semiconductor devices and then delves into the details of implementing practical circuits in modern CMOS technology. A basic knowledge of detectors and electronics is assumed.
Paul O'Connor is associate Head of the Instrumentation Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory. After receiving the Ph.D. degree in solid-state physics from Brown University he worked from 1980-1990 at AT&T Bell Laboratories prior to joining BNL. His research interests are in the field of instrumentation systems for radiation detection, particularly those involving low noise front-end electronics. He is author and co-author of about 130 publications and has been an IEEE member since 1980.
Christophe de La Taille is Director of OMEGA microelectronics lab at Ecole Polytechnique and CNRS/IN2P3 (France). After receiving engineering and Ph.D. degree from Ecole Polytechnique, he joined LAL Orsay and worked on the readout of the ATLAS calorimeter at CERN/LHC and other high energy physics experiments. He was subsequently CTO of IN2P3and recently founded a design lab at Ecole Polytechnique. He is now coordinator of CMS HGCAL electronics. His research interests are in the field of detectors and mixed signal ASIC design. He is author and co-author of about 168 publications and has been an IEEE member since 2003.
Sergio Rescia is a scientist at the Instrumentation Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He received an engineering degree from University of Pavia, Italy and a Ph.D. degree from University of Pennsylvania, Philadephia, USA. After joining Brookhaven National Laboratory he has worked on the readout of liquid argon calorimeters (Helios-NA48, Atlas), silicon detectors, time projection chambers (MicroBoone, SBND, Dune, nEXO) and medical electronics. His research interests center in the field of instrumentation for particle and radiation detectors, particularly optimizing the detector - low noise front end interface. He is author or co-author of over 130 publications and has been an IEEE member since 2002.
This one-day course provides an overall review of the basic principles that underlie the operation of all major types of instruments used in the detection and spectroscopy of charged particles, gamma rays, and other forms of ionizing radiation. Examples of both established applications and recent developments are drawn from areas including particle physics, nuclear medicine, homeland security, and general radiation spectroscopy.
Emphasis is on understanding the fundamental processes that govern the operation of radiation detectors, rather than on operational details that are unique to specific commercial instruments.
Robert Redus is a Member of the IEEE and is the Chief Scientist and Director of Engineering at Amptek, an Ametek company in Bedford, MA. He has spent over thirty years designing instruments for radiation detection and measurement, for many applications and many customers. This include X-ray spectroscopy, gamma-ray spectroscopy using compound semiconductors, scintillators, and HPGe detectors, and space radiation measurements.
Kanai Shah is the President of Radiation Monitoring Devices, Inc. His research areas of interest include novel scintillation materials for high resolution gamma-ray spectroscopy including CeBr3, LuI3:Ce and SrI2:Eu and dual mode scintillators such as Cs2LiYCl6:Ce, Cs2LiLaBr 6:Ce and Cs2LiLa(Br,Cl)6:Ce for combined detection of gamma-rays and neutrons. He has also worked in the areas of ceramic scintillators including garnets and silicates, and organic crystalline and plastic scintillators for neutron detection.
Lothar Strueder is the scientific director of PNSensor GmbH and professor at the University of Siegen. He earned his Ph.D. in Experimental Physics at the TU Munich in 1988. His interests generally include position-, energy-, and time-resolving detectors for photons and particles. He is author or co-author of more than 300 technical and scientific publications. He has been issued 13 worldwide patents in scientific instrumentation.
David Wehe is Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at University of Michigan. He worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a Wigner Fellow, and served as Director of the Michigan Phoenix Memorial Project, which included the 2-MW Ford Nuclear Reactor. His teaching and research have focused on applied radiation measurements, and is an editor for Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research.
This one-day course is intended to introduce the fundamentals of medical imaging to engineers and physicists that have little or no experience in this field. The class begins with a brief overview of the various technologies used to obtain medical images and the fundamentals of tomographic reconstruction. The focus then shifts to in-depth descriptions of the major in vivo imaging modalities – X-ray CT, single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), positron emission mammography (PET), and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Emphasis will be placed on the underlying physical principles, instrument design, factors affecting performance, the current state of the art, and applications in both the clinical and preclinical realms.
No prior knowledge of medical imaging techniques or computed tomography is assumed. However, the course does assume an understanding of physics, elementary radiation detection and measurement techniques, and a basic understanding of Fourier analysis.
Overview of featured modalities
Brief survey of other imaging modalities
Basics of Image Reconstruction
Todd Peterson is Associate Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences in the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Director of Nuclear Imaging for the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science. He received his PhD in Experimental Nuclear Physics at Indiana University and completed a postdoc in the University of Arizona’s Center for Gamma-Ray Imaging before joining the Vanderbilt faculty in 2003. His primary research interest is the application of semiconductor detectors to high-resolution SPECT. He also conducts research in preclinical imaging methodologies and their applications, as well as human PET/CT.
Robert Miyaoka is a Research Professor of Radiology and Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington in 1992. He is Director of the UW Small Animal PET/CT Imaging Resource, the UW-Fred Hutch Translational BioImaging Core, and Nuclear Medicine SPECT/CT Physics. His primary research interests are high resolution PET detector and system development for preclinical and organ specific imaging systems, preclinical PET/CT imaging, quantitative SPECT/CT and theranostics.
Jiang Hsieh is a Chief Scientist of GE Healthcare and an adjunct professor of UW-Madison. He received his PhD from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1989. He joined Siemens Gammasonics Inc. in 1984 and later GE Medical Systems in 1989. He holds over 250 US patents and has authored or co-authored more than 200 articles, book chapters and textbooks. He taught short courses at AAPM, RSNA, IEEE NSS/MIC and SPIE MIC. Jiang is a fellow of IEEE, AIMBE, AAPM and SPIE. His primary research interests are dose reduction technologies, tomographic reconstruction and advanced clinical applications of X-ray CT.
Chao Ma Chao Ma is an Instructor of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2013. He is a junior fellow of ISMRM. His primary research interests are MR spectroscopy/spectroscopic imaging, cardiac MRI, MR RF pulse design and quantitative PET/MR.
Organic Electronics covers a number of research areas in materials science and engineering, including design of thin film organic electronic devices such as photodiodes and transistors or light emitting devices. These devices are quickly making their way into the commercial domain, with innovative mobile devices, high-resolution displays and energy harvesting technologies. New generation of ultralow-cost, lightweight and even flexible electronic devices will perform functions traditionally accomplished with much more expensive components based on conventional semiconductor materials, such as silicon.
The short course presents the basics of this highly promising technology, which is based on small molecules and polymers, and how these materials can be characterised, modelled and implemented successfully in organic electronic modules.
In this course attendees will gain the ability to tie molecular transport phenomena with macroscopic device characteristics in order to perform the analysis, troubleshooting and design of the next generation of organic detectors and electronic devices.
The course addresses many interdisciplinary topics from organic chemistry, physics of carriers’ transport and electronic design with the goal of transcending disciplines but keeping the course accessible to students or enthusiasts in any branch of science or engineering.
Annalisa Bonfiglio graduated in Physics at the University of Genova in 1991 and got a PhD in Bioengineering at the Politecnico of Milano in 1996. In 1996, she joined the University of Cagliari, where she currently teaches Bioelectronics and coordinates the Course of Biomedical Engineering.
Her main research interests are: Organic Semiconductors based Devices for applications in Electronics and in Biomedical Monitoring; Wearable Electronics; Sensors and Biosensors.
She is author of more than 130 among papers in International peer-reviewed journals, Conference proceedings, book chapters, books (as editor) and 8 patents.
She participated as Principal Investigator to several international (EU and extra-EU), national and regional research projects. In particular, she was the Coordinator of the Integrated Project PROETEX (2006-2010, VI FP, EU-ICT, 23 partners all over Europe), dedicated to the realization of wearable systems assisting emergency operators and fire-fighters.
Since 2004, she is Member of the Institute of Nanoscience of CNR.
Since 2014, she has been appointed in the Board of Directors of CRS4 (Centre of Research, Development, and Superior Studies in Sardinia).
Since 2015, she has been appointed Vice-Rector for Innovation and Territorial Strategy.
Beatrice Fraboni: BF holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Bologna, a Master in Microelectronics from the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and a Master in Science and Technology of Semiconductors from the University of Parma.
In 2000 she joined the Faculty of Physics at the University of Bologna where she presently works as an Associate Professor in Condensed Matter Physics.
Her research activity focuses on the analysis and characterization of the electrical transport properties of organic and inorganic semiconducting materials and of advanced (bio)electronic devices.
She coordinates national and international research projects, published over 130 papers in international refereed journals and holds 7 international patents.
Paul Sellin received his PhD in Nuclear Physics from University of Edinburgh (UK) in 1992 in the field of semiconductor nuclear detectors.
His current research interests at the University of Surrey include the development and characterisation of radiation detectors and detector materials for applications in nuclear physics, medical imaging, and security detection.
His research group focuses on the characterisation and development of new detector materials, including plastic and organic scintillators for mixed field neutron/gamma detection, including digital instrumentation and SiPM readout for neutron/gamma sensitive scintillators. Other interests include radiation-hard materials for extreme radiation applications where high dose rate and/or high temperature capability is required and the application of detector technology to nuclear security science, including new modalities for hazardous material detection and identification.
Matthew Griffith completed a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Wollongong in 2012 before undertaking post-doctoral appointments with the CRC for Polymers (Australia) and as a NEDO Fellow at Shinshu University (Japan).
In 2014 he took up a position at the Centre for Organic Electronics at the University of Newcastle, where he worked on developing printed organic electronic nanoparticles for sensing in the explosives industry.
In 2017 he became a Lecturer of Physics and currently leads the industrial printed electronics research program at the Centre for Organic Electronics.
His research focuses on understanding and controlling the fundamental photo-physics in organic electronic materials and devices printed at the roll-to-roll scale, which led to the installation of Australia’s first commercial printed photovoltaic system in 2018.
This one-day course covers both the physical aspects of simultaneous PET/MR (instrumentation, requirements for integration) and its clinical applications. Basics of MR physics, instrumentation and pulse programing, as they relate specifically to PET/MR, will be discussed in detail. Challenges such as attenuation correction and geometry integration will also be described, including an exploration of the opportunities afforded by simultaneous detection of PET and MR signals (e.g. motion compensation, partial volume correction). Special attention will be given to opportunities in dual-probe design for imaging multiple physiological processes not possible with PET or MR alone. These discussions will culminate with a detailed assessment of what clinical applications can benefit from PET/MR and how to leverage its use both in animal and human research and in the clinical setting.
Dr Georges El Fakhri is a Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the founding Director of the Endowed Gordon Center for Medical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital and HMS with over 120 members. He is also co-Director of the Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. Dr El Fakhri is an internationally recognized expert in quantitative molecular imaging (SPECT, PET-CT and PET-MR). He has authored or co-authored over 200 papers and mentored over 90 students, post-docs and faculty. He has been a chartered member of many NIH study sections related to Medical Imaging and Radiotherapy as well as DOD, DOE and other Foundations. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Mark Tetalman Award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine, the Dana Foundation Brain and Immuno-Imaging Award, the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Training Innovation Award (3 awarded in the US). He was elected Fellow to the SNMMI, AAPM and IEEE for “contributions to biological imaging”.
Chao Ma is an Instructor of Radiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School. He received his B.S. and M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering in 2004 and 2007 both from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 2013. He was the Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow of the Beckman Institute at UIUC from 2013 to 2015. In 2015, he joined the Gordon Center for Medical Imaging at MGH. Dr. Ma is a Junior Fellow of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM). His primary research interests are MR spectroscopy/spectroscopic imaging, cardiac MRI, MR RF pulse design and quantitative PET/MR.
Armin Kolb is an interdisciplinary imaging scientist with over 10 years of experience in the field of multimodal imaging technologies with a major focus on PET/MR instrumentation. From the evaluation of new sensors to the ground-up development of new PET-detector schemes, he also has first-hand experience in clinical studies on a prototype brain PET/MRI scanner. During his junior group leadership and PhD candidacy in detector physics at the Werner Siemens Imaging Center in Tubingen, Germany, he was involved in the entire preclinical imaging pipeline as well as first clinical trials on a prototype PET scanner from the conception of experimental designs to the hands-on implementation and final data analysis. Beyond standard clinical and pre-clinical research, he investigated the basic science of positrons in high magnetic fields. Currently, he continues his studies in hybrid imaging at the UC Davis Medical Center. Armin is involved in the development of a preclinical PET/MRI scanner and a dedicated clinical breast PET/CT scanner.
Quanzheng Li is an Associate Professor of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Dr Li is also Director of Computational Imaging and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Gordon Center for Medical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Core Faculty of MGH/BWH Center for Clinical Data Science, Harvard Medical School. He received his B.S degree from Zhejiang University in 1997, M.S. degree from Tsinghua University in 2000, and his Ph.D degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California (USC) in 2005. He did his post-doctoral training at USC from 2006 to 2007 and was a Research Assistant Professor from 2008 to 2010. In 2011, he joined the Radiology Department at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr Li is the recipient of 2015 IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society (NPSS) early achievement award. He is an associate editor of IEEE Transaction on Image Processing, and a member of the editorial boards for Theronostics and Physics in Medicine and Biology. His research interests include image reconstruction and analysis in PET, SPECT, CT and MRI, and data science in health and medicine.
Dr Ruth Lim has triple board certification in Diagnostic Radiology (ABR), Nuclear Medicine (ABNM and ABR-CAQ), and Pediatric Radiology (ABR-CAQ). Her current clinical responsibilities include interpretation of PET-CT scans and nuclear brain scans, in addition to pediatric imaging encompassing all modalities including MRI, PET, CT, US, fluoroscopy and radiography. She is an expert in the field of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging and has lectured to international audiences at annual meetings of the Society for Pediatric Radiology and Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging on the topic of oncologic whole body and brain PET-CT and PET-MR.
This one-day course will cover probability and statistics as applied in a variety of imaging applications.
We will start with a review of fundamental material needed for this course, including the basic definitions of probability and the many random factors in imaging. We will then cover advanced estimation methods, detector statistics, and statistical image reconstruction at a level that will enable attendees to better understand the state-of-the-art presented in the literature.
Special attention will be given to Bayesian estimation and reconstruction methods and comparisons of these methods to non-Bayesian approaches. The very basics of Monte Carlo methods will be presented to introduce the attendees to the terminology. These discussions will culminate in lectures on the statistical nature of image quality and how to define image quality using task performance. ROC analysis and ROC variants will be discussed.
Finally, we will end by covering some common pitfalls that arise when computing image quality measures and also discuss the limitations and utility of traditional hypothesis testing methods.
Matthew A. Kupinski is a Professor at The University of Arizona with appointments in the College of Optical Sciences and the Department of Medical Imaging, and is an affiliate member of the Program in Applied Mathematics. He received a BS degree in physics from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas in 1995, and received his PhD in 2000 from the University of Chicago. In 2000 he became a post-doctoral researcher under Dr Harry Barrett at the University of Arizona and became a faculty member in Optical Sciences in 2002. Matthew is the recipient of the 2007 Mark Tetalman Award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine and the 2012 recipient of the Graduate and Professional Student Council Outstanding Mentor Award. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Medical Imaging and currently the conference chair for the SPIE Image Perception Conference. Matthew has over 50 peer-reviewed publications and numerous book chapters. He has worked in diverse areas of imaging including x-ray, gamma-ray, diffuse optical, magnetic resonance, and neutron imaging.
Lars Furenlid was educated at the University of Arizona and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is currently a Professor at the University of Arizona and co-director of the Center for Gamma-ray Imaging, with appointments in the Departments of Medical Imaging Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, and the College of Optical Sciences. Previously he was a staff scientist at the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory. His major research area is the development and application of detectors, electronics, systems and related algorithms for biomedical imaging. He was the recipient of the 2013 IEEE Radiation Instrumentation Outstanding Achievement Award and Chair of the 2017 MIC.
Eric Clarkson received his BA in Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy from Rice University, an MS in Physics and a PhD in Mathematics from Arizona State University, and an MS in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona. He is currently a Professor at the University of Arizona with a joint appointment in Medical Imaging and Optical Sciences, and is also a faculty member in the Applied Mathematics program. He works primarily in the Center for Gamma Ray Imaging, but also pursues interests in other imaging applications, and in connecting areas of modern mathematics, such as information theory, group theory and operator theory, with image science.
Photodetectors are important building blocks for many applications in particle physics, medical imaging and homeland security.
This one-day course will cover advanced photodetectors most commonly used in these fields. We will begin with the basics of photo detection followed by a quick review of typical applications to illustrate required properties of photodetectors. We will continue with the description of general characteristics of photodetectors including sensitivity (QE, PDE), linearity, excess noise factor (ENF), and timing.
After this introductory part we will discuss in detail different vacuum (PMT, MA-PMT, MCP-PMT), solid state (PD, APD, SiPM) and hybrid photodetectors (HPD, HAPD), and briefly review the status of gaseous photodetectors. For each detector type, internal processes from photon conversion to signal formation and their influence on detector characteristics will be discussed, including various methods for characterization and calibration. Typical applications of these detectors will be reviewed with an emphasis on recent advances and limitations which result from the photodetector characteristics.
The course will provide an overview of available photodetectors and understanding of their properties, advantages and limitations which is necessary for proper selection and operation of a photodetector for a particular application.
Basic principles of photo detection and characteristics of photodetectors (S. Korpar):
Solid state photodetectors (G. Collazuol):
Vacuum based photodetectors (S. Korpar):
Hybrid photodetectors (S. Korpar):
Gaseous photodetectors – quick overview (S. Korpar):
Gianmaria Collazuol is Associate Professor of Electronics, Physics II Laboratory (Electromagnetism) and Advanced Laboratory at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Padova. His fields of interest and current activities include experimental neutrino and cosmic-ray physics and the development of innovative detectors and related electronics for experimental studies using gamma rays, neutrons and charged particles. He is collaborating to the Super-Kamiokande, the T2K and the CALET experiments. He is an internationally recognized expert in the field of solid state photo-detectors.
Samo Korpar is Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Maribor and senior researcher at the Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana. He is an experimental particle physicist, and is one of the leading experts on ring imaging Cherenkov detectors, with a particular emphasis on single photon detection and the corresponding read-out electronics. He has made important contribution to the understanding of properties of multi-anode photomultiplier tubes, micro-channel plate photomultiplier tubes, hybrid photon detectors and solid state based sensors. He worked on the HERA-B and Belle experiments, and is currently leading the commissioning of the forward RICH of the Belle II experiment. He is also investigating possible applications of very fast low level light sensors in medical imaging.
GATE is a GEANT4-based advanced open source software developed by the international OpenGATE collaboration It is dedicated to numerical simulations in medical imaging and radiotherapy. It currently supports simulations of Emission Tomography (Positron Emission Tomography - PET and Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography - SPECT), Computed Tomography (CT), Optical Imaging (Bioluminescence and Fluorescence) and Radiotherapy experiments. Using an easy-to-learn macro mechanism to configure simple or highly sophisticated experimental settings, GATE plays a key role in the design of new medical imaging devices, in the optimization of acquisition protocols and in the development and assessment of image reconstruction algorithms and correction techniques. It can also be used for dose calculation in radiotherapy experiments.
Lectures will include:
General introduction to the GEANT4 / GATE framework: Yoonsuk Huh
Usage of GATE: Radiation Therapy & Molecular Imaging: Panagiotis Papadimitroulas
Linking GATE to further analysis packages: data analysis with ROOT and image reconstruction with (CASToR): Thibaut Merlin
EduGATE - integrating GATE in teaching basic aspects of physics in medical Imaging
It is also planned to have a hands-on/demo session with GATE installed on some computers and direct interaction with the attendees: all instructors + supporters.
For the practical sessions, students are encouraged to bring their own laptop and install GATE as well as CASToR before attending the course.
Necessary guidelines are available here:
GATE: http://wiki.opengatecollaboration.org/index.php/Installation_Guide_V8.0 (please make sure to install the ROOT library)
CASToR: http://www.castor-project.org/sites/default/files/2017-07/CASToR_general_documentation.pdf (section 3).
Panagiotis Papadimitroulas is a medical physicist. He received his Diploma in Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences in 2009 and his Master degree in Medical Physics in 2011. Since 2015, he holds a PhD on the field of Monte Carlo simulations for the evaluation of imaging and dosimetry clinical protocols from the University of Patras (Greece).
He is a member of the OpenGATE collaboration and his research interests lie on the use of GATE Monte Carlo simulations for personalized medicine and on dosimetry for clinical & pre-clinical applications.
He authored 1 book chapter, 12 peer reviewed publications and has over 50 announcements in international and national conferences in the field of medical physics.
Since 2013 he is the co-founder and Project Director of Bio-Emission Technology Solutions (www.betsolutions.gr), participating in several international and national research projects (H2020, FP7)
Yoonsuk Huh has worked as a senior engineer at Computer-Aided Engineering Group, Advanced R&D Team, Health and Medical Equipment Business, Samsung Electronics since September 2013.
The main research topics are analysis the performance of Digial Radiogaphy/Tomosynthesis or CT system (e.g. X- tube, grid, photon counting detector) and pre-validation of advanced technologies (e.g. radiation distribution, low dose imaging, material decomposition modelling) with Geant4 and GATE.
He got his PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, S. Korea. During the same period (2010 - 2013), he was a researcher at Molecular Imaging Research and Education (MiRe) Lab., Department of Electronic Engineering, Sogang University, Seoul, S. Korea, where he played an important role in the extensive validation of GATE for nuclear medicine imaging systems and in the development and performance improvement of PET and PET-MRI based on SiPM.
Thibaut Merlin is a researcher at the Laboratoire de Traitement de l'Information Médicale (LaTIM – INSERM UMR 1101).
He received his education from the ISEN engineering school and Université de Bretagne Occidentale (France) and got his PhD degree in 2013 from the University of Bordeaux.
The main research topics are multi-dimensionnal and multi-modal tomographic reconstruction, respiratory motion correction and resolution modelling in PET. On-going research projects focus on the development of an open source multi-modal reconstruction platform within the CASToR collaboration.
The growing success of PET and SPECT imaging combined with CT or MR has led to the evolution of molecular imaging modalities that assist in improving diagnosis and staging of diseases. Emerging PET and SPECT imaging is used to drive patient therapy, therefore reliable image quantification and high image quality are important factors. Image reconstruction methods have a key role in converting the measurement to a meaningful image and along with new hardware developments offer a stimulating research environment for advancements of PET and SPECT imaging.
This course will provide an overview of analytical and iterative tomographic image reconstruction methods used in computerized tomography primarily focusing on SPECT and PET. It will start with fundamental mathematics of image reconstruction for PET and SPECT and then describe the current algorithmic design to account for a variety of physical phenomena during the image acquisition process and other factors impacting this process such as motion.
The third part of the course will cover demonstrations and practical exercises with STIR, an open source software library for PET and SPECT image reconstruction. The attendees will have the opportunity to simulate and reconstruct data, perform scatter correction, motion correction and other tasks.
Prerequisite knowledge includes basic principles of physics of x-rays and γ-rays, statistics, calculus, elementary linear algebra and optimization theory.
For the practical sessions, students are encouraged to bring their own laptop and install STIR before attending the course.
Necessary guidelines are available via the software package website: stir.sourceforge.net.
Basic knowledge of Python and Linux bash terminal commands are recommended.
Johan Nuyts is a professor of the Faculty of Medicine at KU Leuven, Belgium. He is with the Department of Nuclear Medicine and with the Medical Imaging Research Center (MIRC). He is also Honorary Professor in Medical Radiation Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney and IEEE senior member.
He received his Ph.D. in applied sciences from KU Leuven in 1991 on the subject of image reconstruction and quantification in SPECT. He co-authored about 140 scientific journal papers and 4 patents.
His main research interest is in iterative reconstruction in PET, SPECT and CT. Ongoing research projects focus on maximum-a-posteriori reconstruction in emission tomography, iterative reconstruction in CT, attenuation correction in PET/CT, PET/MRI and TOF-PET, and motion correction in PET and CT.
Kris Thielemans is a Reader at University College London (UCL) and is an IEEE senior member.
He received his PhD degree in String Theory from KU Leuven in 1994. Prior to UCL, he has been working as a Researcher at Hammersmith (London, UK) for the Medical Research Council and General Electric, and at King’s College London (KCL).
His research interests encompass all aspects of quantitative PET image reconstruction with emphasis on the development of advanced reconstruction techniques for PET and SPECT including motion correction.
He developed along with others an open source software for tomographic image reconstruction (STIR) which has been cited more than 250 times.
Charalampos Tsoumpas is a Lecturer of Medical Imaging at the Division of Biomedical Imaging, University of Leeds in the UK since 2013 and Visiting Assistant Professor with the Translational Molecular Imaging Institute at Mount Sinai, New York since 2014.
He received his Ph.D. degree in Parametric Image Reconstruction from Imperial College London in 2008 and worked as a post-doctoral fellow at KCL on PET-MR. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and Fellow of Higher Education Academy. He has contributions in more than 50 peer-reviewed papers, 85 conference records and abstracts and two patents with GE Healthcare.
His research interests include statistical image reconstruction and acquisition process modelling for more accurate and precise PET imaging.
latest news
Dec 29 - Winners of the $200 Amazon Gift Vouchers
1. Martin Nikl, Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
2. Laura Stonehill, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Oct 01, 2019 - Conference Records are available
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