Imaging Innovation at the MIR Research Symposium
Imaging science is a broad field with many areas of study and application. To highlight the range of work within the discipline, faculty and trainees gathered for the WashU Medicine Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR) Research Symposium. Held at the Eric P. Newman Education Center, the event allowed investigators the opportunity to present their current research and connect with fellow researchers.
Pamela K. Woodard, MD, the Elizabeth E. Mallinckrodt Professor and MIR director; Robert J. Gropler, MD, professor of radiology and senior vice chair and division director of radiological sciences; and Yuan-Chuan Tai, PhD, professor of radiology and senior vice chair and division director of radiology research facilities, welcomed guests and shared updates about the department’s research enterprise and growth over the last year.
Mark A. Anastasio, PhD, vice chair for imaging sciences and AI research and the Mallinckrodt Endowed Professor in Imaging Sciences for MIR, presented the keynote lecture “Beyond Algorithms: Integrating AI with Foundational Imaging Science.” Anastasio serves as the director of the Computational Imaging Research Center (CIRC) and the Center for Computational and AI-Enabled Imaging Sciences (C2AIS), leading efforts to develop and apply advanced computational methods and AI in biomedical imaging.
Additional talks from MIR faculty included:
- Shinjini Kundu, MD, PhD, assistant professor of radiology, “Beyond What the Eye Can See: Re-Imagining Precision Medicine”
- Daniel C. Castro, PhD, assistant professor of radiology, “Pancreatic Opioids: A Novel Target for Dysglycemia?”
- Edwin J. Baldelomar, PhD, instructor in radiology, “Imaging Approaches to Accurate, Individualized Assessment of Kidney Health”
- Rebecca Schwarzlose, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry, “Sensory Signaling and Neuropsychiatric Risk in Infants and Children”
- José Marcio Luna, PhD, assistant professor of radiology, “Multiscale Spatial Imaging for Computational Cancer Phenotyping”
- Jennie E. Brodsky, MD, assistant professor of radiology, “Breast Imaging Research and the Move from Surgery to Safe De-Escalation”
- Three lightning-round lectures from Helia Hosseini, MD, Govind Mattay, MD, and Farzaneh Rahmani, MD.
The symposium concluded with a poster session that gave trainees and faculty a chance to share their latest work, insights and time, reflecting the breadth of imaging science disciplines and the community’s collaborative spirit. Nick Vidas-Guscic, a research assistant in the Guglielmetti Lab, received the Ter-Pogossian Best Poster Award for “Detection of Brain Metabolic Alterations Using Hyperpolarized 13C MRS in a Tauopathy Model of Alzheimer’s Disease.”
