CIPRIAN CATANA, MD, PHD: JOURNEY TO INTEGRATION: FROM ADVANCES IN ORGAN-SPECIFIC PET/MR IMAGING TO STUDYING INTERCONNECTED SYSTEMS.

Ciprian Catana, MD, PHD

Director of Integrated PET/MR Imaging
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging
Department of Radiology
Massachusetts General Hospital
Professor of Radiology
Harvard Medical School

Abstract

The integration of positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was motivated by the complementary information provided by these two powerful imaging modalities that are widely used for research and clinical applications. Over the last 15 years, our group has focused on developing software to address one of the challenges in human simultaneous PET/MRI (i.e., attenuation correction) and explore the opportunities opened by simultaneous data acquisition (i.e., MR-assisted PET data optimization). Additionally, our group has placed significant emphasis on translating these hardware and software tools to research and clinical applications. Here, we will describe these organ-specific methodological developments and potential applications focused on the brain, lungs, heart, liver, and prostate. Regarding the future of hybrid imaging, we are leading a multi-institutional international effort to build a 7-Tesla MR-compatible PET camera with an order of magnitude improved sensitivity to enable imaging of neurochemical dynamics with unprecedented temporal resolution and beyond state-of-the-art spatial resolution. While these advanced capabilities will benefit neuroscientists, the recent introduction of long axial field-of-view hybrid PET/CT scanners provides a unique opportunity to perform simultaneous multi-organ dynamic imaging. Together, these next-generation devices will enable us to build upon the advances in organ-specific imaging and to explore new directions in Integrative Medicine, particularly by studying interconnected systems (e.g. brain-heart, brain-vasculature, gut-liver-brain, etc.).

Short Bio

Dr. Ciprian Catana received his MD degree from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy Targu-Mures Romania and subsequently conducted his PhD research in Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Davis, and postdoctoral training at MGH. He is currently a Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, Director of Integrated PET-MR imaging at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center, MGH, Faculty at the Institute for Innovation in Imaging (I3) at MGH, affiliated member of the Biophysics Program at Harvard University, member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and a Diplomate of the American Board of Science in Nuclear Medicine (ABSNM). Dr. Catana is an active scientist with expertise in PET imaging research methods, technology development, and their applications in neurology/neuroscience, cancer, cardiovascular, and lung disease. He leads a nationally recognized research program, funded by four NIH institutes and industry, focused on multimodal simultaneous PET-MR imaging. Specifically, his efforts have concentrated on developing and validating this technology, on identifying and implementing methods to best exploit the combined data and on applying these tools to studies in various patient populations.