Biomedical Imaging Technology at Cal: for Early-Stage Medical Diagnosis

Abstract Treatments for diseases are most effective when the disease is noticed at the earliest stage. Modern medical imaging tools are indispensable for early-stage diagnosis of deadly diseases, like Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke. Unfortunately, many diseases are still only diagnosed at advanced stage. For example, only 15% of lung cancer is diagnosed at the earliest stage. Hence, Berkeley researchers are improving medical imaging tools like X-ray CT and MRI.

Medical Imaging is a relentlessly multi-disciplinary field, requiring expertise in physics, medicine, biochemistry, electronics and software algorithms. Professor Conolly’s talk will cover basic applications and limitations of medical imaging tools. He will also highlight his lab’s work in Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI), a new noninvasive biomedical imaging modality that could provide zero-radiation early-stage diagnosis of several diseases including: pulmonary embolisms, strokes, gut bleeds, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. MPI could revolutionize the most exciting breakthrough area of cancer today, immunotherapy.

Speaker: Steven Connoly, UC Berkeley