Research

Overview

My fellowship research experience included 2.5 years of post-doctoral research training in the Asthma and Airway Translational Research Unit (AATRU) under the mentorship of Dr. Mario Castro. My research focus has been in establishing imaging biomarkers in respiratory disease, with a historical focus in airway and interstitial lung diseases. We utilize both volumetric computed chest tomography (CT) and ¹²⁹Xe lung MRI.

We completed a double-blind, parallel assignment pilot study evaluating the efficacy and safety of image-guided bronchial thermoplasty. In this study, a single session of ¹²⁹Xe MR image-guided BT was compared to standard three session BT.

Currently, we are utilizing the unique properties of ¹²⁹Xe MRI to develop sensitive imaging biomarkers of treatment response in a number of respiratory diseases. We have focused on protocol development to speed up image acquisition time as well as develop fully automated image analysis programs. Our image analysis pipelines of both CT and ¹²⁹Xe MRI integrate image segmentation using convolutional neural networks to improve accuracy and reduce time.

We are a member of the 129Xe MRI Clinical Trials Consortium.