Ron Kikinis, Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School
In the past two decades we have witnessed unprecedented advances in our ability to acquire more and more complex data. Similar advances in accessible computational power have also opened new types of algorithms for image post processing.
Based on these advances, Medical Image Computing has evolved into a field of its own, which bridges the gap between applied mathematics and biomedical research.
Modern imaging methods such as fMRI and DTI are meaningless without very sophisticated post-processing methods. The application of these technologies further requires software systems that are flexible enough for research and sufficiently stable for commercial products.
The National Alliance for Medical Image Computing and the Neuroimage Analysis Center are large NIH funded efforts that develop technologies and concepts to bridge that gap. Examples from psychiatric, neurologic and neurosurgical research will be discussed.
Joint work with F. Jolesz, M. Shenton, NA-MIC and NAC.
Dr. Kikinis is the Founding Director of the Surgical Planning Laboratory of the Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School; Principal Investigator, National Alliance for Medical Image Computing (a National Center for Biomedical Computing, part of the Roadmap Initiative), and Neuroimaging Analysis Center (a NCRR National Resource Center); and Research Director, Image Guided Therapy Program, Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
His interests include the development of image processing algorithms and software systems, and their application to a variety of medical applications. He is the author and co-author of more than 200 peer-reviewed articles.
Before joining Brigham & Women's Hospital in 1988, he worked as a researcher at the ETH in Zurich and as a resident at the University Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland. He received his M.D. from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in 1982.