Precision Imaging in Nuclear Medicine: From Simulations to Clinic
January 22, 2021 1:00-2:00 p.m.
Spencer L. Bowen, PhD
UTSW
ABSTRACT:
Spencer L. Bowen, Ph.D and his lab focus on the development of tools for hybrid positron emission tomography (PET) and complimentary modalities (e.g. CT), to advance precision imaging for the care and study of oncology, neurology, and cardiology patients. The combination of quantitative metrics from PET and CT or MR has been shown to dramatically improve disease detection, diagnosis, staging, and therapy response monitoring for a large array of clinical domains. Thus, advances in hybrid quantitative imaging may have a substantial benefit on patient care. We investigate advanced acquisition techniques, reconstruction algorithms, and post-processing methods. In all instances our goal is to translate these tools to research studies and patient scanning, and we work closely with academic and industrial partners to meet this objective. This seminar will cover recent past and current primary areas of research, including: 1) enhancing combined PET-MR image quality, 2) developing advanced PET data correction methods that use the PET signal-alone, and 3) developing an approach to detect faulty radiotracer injections.
BIOGRAPHY: Spencer L. Bowen, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Radiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Adjunct Faculty member in the UT Dallas Department of Bioengineering. He earned his doctoral degree in biomedical engineering from the University of California at Davis, and then pursued a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Prior to joining the UT Southwestern faculty in 2020, he served as a research assistant professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech-Carilion in Roanoke, Virginia. His research activities have resulted in more than a dozen original scientific publications, have been featured on the cover of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, and covered by the press.