16th Annual UCSF Radiology Imaging Research Symposium and Awards Highlight Department's Research Accomplishments
The UC San Francisco Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging's 16th Annual Imaging Research Symposium showcased the department's current and ongoing research. Chair Christopher Hess, MD, PhD, and Vice Chair of Research Sharmila Majumdar, PhD, welcomed the audience. Dr. Hess provided an overview of the department's research infrastructure and introduced the department's new Center for Intelligent Imaging (CI2) which uses innovative imaging analytics and artificial intelligence to improve patient care. Oral presentations were given by 16 speakers on a broad spectrum of topics including cancer, neurodegenerative disease, musculoskeletal disease and cardiovascular disease. Information was provided on research in the areas of CT, MR, PET, SPECT, MEG, EEG, optical imaging, and ultrasound. In addition, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in radiology, deep learning, medical informatics, and MR/CT contrast agent development were addressed.
Over 200 attendees gathered at the Mission Bay Conference Center to attend the symposium which took place on October 9, 2019. Following the presentations, the audience attended a comprehensive session featuring 68 scientific posters showing the breadth, depth and strength of the department's research. A ceremony following the poster session awarded Denis Beckford-Vera, PhD with Best Podium Presentation for his talk on "Translation of 89Zr-VRC01 for PET/MR Imaging of Persistent HIV: First-in-Human" and Mithun Diwaker, MD, PhD with Best Poster Award for his scientific poster explaining "Robust and Efficient High-resolution Beamformer Reconstruction of Magnetoencephalographic Brain Imaging Data Using Low-Resolution Sparse Bayesian Learning."
This year, UCSF Radiology presented the inaugural Rahul Desikan, MD Award for Outstanding Research by a Junior Faculty or Fellow to Yi Li, MD. This award honors the memory of Rahul Desikan, MD, PhD (1978-2019), a brilliant neuroscientist, radiologist, faculty member and friend who recently passed away after a hard-fought battle with ALS.
Each year, another major highlight of the Symposium is the Bruce Hasegawa PhD Award. This year's awardee was Yan Wang, PhD, an assistant researcher working in the department's Vascular and Cardiac Research Group. The Hasegawa Award honors the memory of Bruce Hasegawa, PhD (1954-2008) a distinguished scientist, teacher and mentor whose UCSF research career focused on medical physics and bioengineering. His research was highlighted by his pioneering work combining SPECT functional imaging with CT anatomical imaging to produce the first combined dual-modality imaging system, SPECT/CT.