An Vu, PhD

Assistant Professor
Assistant Adjunct Professor
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Biography

Dr. Joseph (An Thanh) Vu obtained his PhD from the joint UC Berkeley – UCSF Bioengineering graduate program in 2011. He served as a research associate in Radiology at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Magnetic Resonance Research from 2012-2015, where he developed advanced fMRI and dMRI methods for the 7T Human Connectome Project. Subsequently as a senior research scientist at Advanced MRI Technologies, Dr. Vu continued to advance the field of high spatiotemporal resolution fMRI through multiple BRAIN Initiative projects. In 2016, Dr. Vu took on the roles of physicist in Radiology at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System (SFVAHCS) and Technical Director for the Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases (CIND) at the SFVAHCS, where he developed internationally patent pending fMRI technology, spear headed major upgrades and expansions of the 7T MRI system at the SFVAHCS, and serves on both the UCSF and VA MRI Safety Committees. In March of 2019, Dr. Vu accepted the position of assistant adjunct professor in the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at UCSF and at the SFVAHCS, where he serves as Director of Advanced Imaging Technologies for the Veteran Affairs Advanced Imaging Research Center (VAARC).

Publications

Wang K, Canchola AJ, McKinley M, Guan A, Vu A, Lin K, Meltzer D, Dixit N, Chu JN, Idossa D, Van Blarigan EL, Cheng I, Shariff-Marco S, Gomez SL. Disparities in cancer stage shifts associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in California, 2020-2021. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2024 Oct 31.
Boulant N, Ma S, Walker E, Beckett A, Vu AT, Gunamony S, Feinberg DA. Acoustic noise reduction in the NexGen 7 T scanner. Magn Reson Med. 2024 Nov; 92(5):2261-2270.
Feinberg DA, Beckett AJS, Vu AT, Stockmann J, Huber L, Ma S, Ahn S, Setsompop K, Cao X, Park S, Liu C, Wald LL, Polimeni JR, Mareyam A, Gruber B, Stirnberg R, Liao C, Yacoub E, Davids M, Bell P, Rummert E, Koehler M, Potthast A, Gonzalez-Insua I, Stocker S, Gunamony S, Dietz P. Next-generation MRI scanner designed for ultra-high-resolution human brain imaging at 7 Tesla. Nat Methods. 2023 Dec; 20(12):2048-2057.
Gruber B, Stockmann JP, Mareyam A, Keil B, Bilgic B, Chang Y, Kazemivalipour E, Beckett AJS, Vu AT, Feinberg DA, Wald LL. A 128-channel receive array for cortical brain imaging at 7 T. Magn Reson Med. 2023 12; 90(6):2592-2607.
Sollmann N, Fields AJ, O'Neill C, Nardo L, Majumdar S, Chin CT, Tosun D, Han M, Vu AT, Ozhinsky E, Shah LM, Harris RE, Lobo R, Anderst W, Herzog R, Psioda MA, Standaert CJ, Price RT, Lotz JC, Link TM, Krug R. Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Lumbar Spine: Recommendations for Acquisition and Image Evaluation from the BACPAC Spine Imaging Working Group. Pain Med. 2023 08 04; 24(Suppl 1):S81-S94.
Yu T, Cai LY, Torrisi S, Vu AT, Morgan VL, Goodale SE, Ramadass K, Meisler SL, Lv J, Warren AEL, Englot DJ, Cutting L, Chang C, Gore JC, Landman BA, Schilling KG. Distortion correction of functional MRI without reverse phase encoding scans or field maps. Magn Reson Imaging. 2023 11; 103:18-27.
Davids M, Dietz P, Ruyters G, Roesler M, Klein V, Guérin B, Feinberg DA, Wald LL. Peripheral nerve stimulation informed design of a high-performance asymmetric head gradient coil. Magn Reson Med. 2023 08; 90(2):784-801.
Vu AT, Feinberg DA. The Role of Cerebral Metabolism in Improving Time Pressured Decisions. Front Psychol. 2021; 12:690198.
Vu AT. Editorial for "Combined Denoising and Suppression of Transient Artifacts in Arterial Spin Labeling MRI Using Deep Learning". J Magn Reson Imaging. 2020 11; 52(5):1427-1428.
Benson NC, Jamison KW, Arcaro MJ, Vu AT, Glasser MF, Coalson TS, Van Essen DC, Yacoub E, Ugurbil K, Winawer J, Kay K. The Human Connectome Project 7 Tesla retinotopy dataset: Description and population receptive field analysis. J Vis. 2018 12 03; 18(13):23.
Wu X, Auerbach EJ, Vu AT, Moeller S, Van de Moortele PF, Yacoub E, Ugurbil K. Human Connectome Project-style resting-state functional MRI at 7 Tesla using radiofrequency parallel transmission. Neuroimage. 2019 01 01; 184:396-408.
Gulban OF, De Martino F, Vu AT, Yacoub E, Ugurbil K, Lenglet C. Cortical fibers orientation mapping using in-vivo whole brain 7 T diffusion MRI. Neuroimage. 2018 09; 178:104-118.
Wu X, Auerbach EJ, Vu AT, Moeller S, Lenglet C, Schmitter S, Van de Moortele PF, Yacoub E, Ugurbil K. High-resolution whole-brain diffusion MRI at 7T using radiofrequency parallel transmission. Magn Reson Med. 2018 11; 80(5):1857-1870.
Moerel M, De Martino F, Kemper VG, Schmitter S, Vu AT, Ugurbil K, Formisano E, Yacoub E. Sensitivity and specificity considerations for fMRI encoding, decoding, and mapping of auditory cortex at ultra-high field. Neuroimage. 2018 01 01; 164:18-31.
Feinberg DA, Vu AT, Beckett A. Pushing the limits of ultra-high resolution human brain imaging with SMS-EPI demonstrated for columnar level fMRI. Neuroimage. 2018 01 01; 164:155-163.
Vu AT, Beckett A, Setsompop K, Feinberg DA. Evaluation of SLIce Dithered Enhanced Resolution Simultaneous MultiSlice (SLIDER-SMS) for human fMRI. Neuroimage. 2018 01 01; 164:164-171.
Huth AG, Lee T, Nishimoto S, Bilenko NY, Vu AT, Gallant JL. Decoding the Semantic Content of Natural Movies from Human Brain Activity. Front Syst Neurosci. 2016; 10:81.
Vu AT, Phillips JS, Kay K, Phillips ME, Johnson MR, Shinkareva SV, Tubridy S, Millin R, Grossman M, Gureckis T, Bhattacharyya R, Yacoub E. Using precise word timing information improves decoding accuracy in a multiband-accelerated multimodal reading experiment. Cogn Neuropsychol. 2016 May-Jun; 33(3-4):265-75.
Sotiropoulos SN, Hernández-Fernández M, Vu AT, Andersson JL, Moeller S, Yacoub E, Lenglet C, Ugurbil K, Behrens TEJ, Jbabdi S. Fusion in diffusion MRI for improved fibre orientation estimation: An application to the 3T and 7T data of the Human Connectome Project. Neuroimage. 2016 07 01; 134:396-409.
Delaney KP, Rurangirwa J, Facente S, Dowling T, Janson M, Knoble T, Vu A, Hu YW, Kerndt PR, King J, Scheer S. Using a Multitest Algorithm to Improve the Positive Predictive Value of Rapid HIV Testing and Linkage to HIV Care in Nonclinical HIV Test Sites. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2016 Jan 01; 71(1):78-86.
Vu AT, Gallant JL. Using a novel source-localized phase regressor technique for evaluation of the vascular contribution to semantic category area localization in BOLD fMRI. Front Neurosci. 2015; 9:411.
Vu AT, Auerbach E, Lenglet C, Moeller S, Sotiropoulos SN, Jbabdi S, Andersson J, Yacoub E, Ugurbil K. High resolution whole brain diffusion imaging at 7T for the Human Connectome Project. Neuroimage. 2015 Nov 15; 122:318-31.
Kemper VG, De Martino F, Vu AT, Poser BA, Feinberg DA, Goebel R, Yacoub E. Sub-millimeter T2 weighted fMRI at 7 T: comparison of 3D-GRASE and 2D SE-EPI. Front Neurosci. 2015; 9:163.
Wang Y, Moeller S, Li X, Vu AT, Krasileva K, Ugurbil K, Yacoub E, Wang DJ. Simultaneous multi-slice Turbo-FLASH imaging with CAIPIRINHA for whole brain distortion-free pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling at 3 and 7 T. Neuroimage. 2015 Jun; 113:279-88.
Schwarcz SK, Vu A, Hsu LC, Hessol NA. Changes in causes of death among persons with AIDS: San Francisco, California, 1996-2011. AIDS Patient Care STDS. 2014 Oct; 28(10):517-23.
Denison RN, Vu AT, Yacoub E, Feinberg DA, Silver MA. Functional mapping of the magnocellular and parvocellular subdivisions of human LGN. Neuroimage. 2014 Nov 15; 102 Pt 2:358-69.
Ugurbil K, Xu J, Auerbach EJ, Moeller S, Vu AT, Duarte-Carvajalino JM, Lenglet C, Wu X, Schmitter S, Van de Moortele PF, Strupp J, Sapiro G, De Martino F, Wang D, Harel N, Garwood M, Chen L, Feinberg DA, Smith SM, Miller KL, Sotiropoulos SN, Jbabdi S, Andersson JL, Behrens TE, Glasser MF, Van Essen DC, Yacoub E, WU-Minn HCP Consortium. Pushing spatial and temporal resolution for functional and diffusion MRI in the Human Connectome Project. Neuroimage. 2013 Oct 15; 80:80-104.
Smith SM, Beckmann CF, Andersson J, Auerbach EJ, Bijsterbosch J, Douaud G, Duff E, Feinberg DA, Griffanti L, Harms MP, Kelly M, Laumann T, Miller KL, Moeller S, Petersen S, Power J, Salimi-Khorshidi G, Snyder AZ, Vu AT, Woolrich MW, Xu J, Yacoub E, Ugurbil K, Van Essen DC, Glasser MF, WU-Minn HCP Consortium. Resting-state fMRI in the Human Connectome Project. Neuroimage. 2013 Oct 15; 80:144-68.
Huth AG, Nishimoto S, Vu AT, Gallant JL. A continuous semantic space describes the representation of thousands of object and action categories across the human brain. Neuron. 2012 Dec 20; 76(6):1210-24.
Nishimoto S, Vu AT, Naselaris T, Benjamini Y, Yu B, Gallant JL. Reconstructing visual experiences from brain activity evoked by natural movies. Curr Biol. 2011 Oct 11; 21(19):1641-6.