Carmen Morcillo Pérez, Author at Centre For Medical Engineering

Professor Gary Cook Awarded Roll of Honour

Professor Cook trained in radiology and nuclear medicine in London, completing his MD in Quantitative 18F-fluoride PET in Metabolic Bone Diseases at King’s College London.

He was appointed to the Chair of Molecular Imaging in the School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences Cancer Imaging Department and KCL and Guy’s & St Thomas PET Centre and as an honorary consultant physician at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals in 2011.

Professor Cook currently leads a research group undertaking imaging trials including multicentre UK studies related to his research interests: novel functional imaging cancer biomarkers, development of radiomic methods and software, functional imaging of bone metabolism and bone metastases.

As a member of the BNMS for over 30 years, Professor Cook has been involved in working parties producing PET standards and a PET radiopharmaceutical manifesto. He has contributed to best practice guidelines for BNMS, European and US writing committees for breast, upper GI, prostate, and anal cancers.

The British Nuclear Medicine Society is the only independent forum devoted to all aspects of nuclear medicine in the UK. The BNMS Roll of Honour was established in 2017 to honour and remember those distinguished members who contributed to the history of nuclear medicine in the UK and to the BNMS. The Officers appoint to the BNMS Roll of Honour, a small number of highly distinguished members who have played significant roles in the history of the specialty.

Read the full article on kcl.ac.uk

Professor Sebastien Ourselin elected as new Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences

Prof Ourselin has gained international recognition for his engineering contributions in medical image registration, segmentation and classification.

Over two decades, he has made major advances to imaging sciences, focusing on brain diseases and the robust translation of image analysis pipelines into clinical settings. His innovations have reached the clinic and commercialisation, especially in neurodegenerative diseases, neurosurgery, image-guided surgery and surgical simulation. He has been a leading advocate for healthcare engineering in the UK and globally, leading the development of the MedTech Hub at St Thomas’ Hospital, a transformative ecosystem enabling and facilitating medtech co-creation between academia, industry and the NHS.

Highlighting how the School’s mission of Engineering Better Health is closely aligned with that of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Prof Ourselin explained:

“The School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences is advancing healthcare engineering research, teaching, and entrepreneurialism by bringing life-changing medical technologies to patients and clinicians faster.

“To do this we need to drive technical innovation and translation by building partnerships and breaking traditional disciplinary boundaries across education, R&D, hospital environments and MedTech companies and start-ups.

“This honour from the Academy of Medical Sciences not only reflects our ambition to innovate in the technical space of healthcare engineering research, but also celebrates how the translation of this cutting-edge research leads directly to life-changing diagnostics and interventional approaches for patients.”

Prof Ourselin joins 58 other influential biomedical and health scientists newly elected to the respected Fellowship. The new Fellows have been elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in recognition of their exceptional contributions to the advancement of biomedical and health science, cutting edge research discoveries, and translating developments into benefits for patients and the wider society.

Other King’s fellows elected this year include:

Professor Peter Sasieni FMedSci, Director of Cancer Prevention Trials Unit, King’s College London
Professor Ulrike Schmidt FMedSci, Professor of Eating Disorders, King’s College London

Based in Central London, the Academy’s global mission is to help create an open and progressive research sector to improve the health of people everywhere. Its key strategic priorities include supporting researchers with funding and career development, and creating a more sustainable environment for delivering research.

Read the full article on kcl.ac.uk

First PET Scan using new tracer for prostate cancer diagnosis

For the first time in the UK, patients have been scanned in the King’s College London & Guy’s and St Thomas’ PET Centre using F18-DCFPyl, a new Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) PET tracer for the detection of prostate cancer.

In recent years, PSMA PET has become the primary modality for staging high-risk prostate cancer or detecting disease recurrence. This has been made possible by the introduction of specific tracers based on PSMA’s such as Ga68-PSMA. Ga68-PSMA can only be produced in small batches and requires complex logistics for production. There is also competition for the manufacture with other 68Ga-based tracers, creating a possible conflict of demand in particularly busy periods. The tracer, F18-DCFPyl has recently become available in London and has shown to be a valid alternative prostate cancer tracer with a strong evidence base.

The KCL & GSTT PET Centre is a referral centre in the UK for this specific application, thanks to the availability of PSMA tracers through GSTT radiopharmacy and the close collaboration with prostate cancer uro-oncology and surgical teams. KCL & GSTT are planning to work on a technology transfer in collaboration with Industry, enabling internal production of F18-DCFPyl in the Positron Emitting Radiopharmecutical Laboratory (PERL) at St Thomas’. This will guarantee a greater availability of the tracer, allowing expansion of the prostate cancer PET service.

Read the full article on kcl.ac.uk

UK first: baby brain images can reveal new insights into disease processes

This advance allows several new opportunities to gain important new information with neonatal imaging, such as the early identification of neurodevelopmental disorders and new insight into the underlying disease processes.

The team from King’s is the second worldwide to have started scanning babies on an ultra-high field MRI scanner. Since opening in mid-2022 at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Clinical Research Facility’s imaging unit, more than 20 babies have been scanned. A particular focus has been scanning babies who are at high risk of injuries to their brain which might not be seen with other scanners such as those born prematurely or with congenital heart conditions.

The researchers say they are excited about the extra detail seen on these early images in comparison to those acquired with a standard 1.5T or 3T MRI scanner. The quality of the scans will improve even more with further sequence optimisation. The images also highlight the possibilities for the technology moving forwards.

The increased signal-to-noise ratio the scanner offers means that clinicians and researchers can get high contrast, high resolution anatomical images such as these T2 images (which are at 0.4 microlitre resolution compared to typical images on standard scanners which are usually 1-2 microliters). As a result, it will be possible to achieve much deeper characterisation of brain tissue development and pathology in a much more specific way than standard clinical field strengths. This has implications not only for better disease identification, but also for understanding how a disease alters brain development.

The researchers say scanning at 7 Tesla will allow the use of particular MRI contrasts which greatly benefit from the stronger static magnetic field. These include fMRI (which studies brain activity), Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) (which studies chemical levels in the brain), and susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) (which can identify blood in blood vessels or from bleeding).

As these scanners are not built with neonatal imaging in mind, in order to get to this point the researchers had to prove that scanning babies would be safe. This involved a detailed safety study led by Dr Malik which was assisted by a Biomedical Engineering BEng student at King’s who helped to make a computer model of a neonate for their simulation work.

Claire Lemer, clinical director for medicine and neonatology at Evelina London Children’s Hospital, said: “Thanks to the research from our colleagues at King’s College London, we have started to use this new, advanced MRI scanner in our neonatology services. We’re so pleased to be able to use this new, advanced MRI scanner in clinical practice to help improve diagnosis and care that we offer to seriously ill and premature babies. Having maternity and neonatal care all under one roof, with the expertise of researchers at King’s College London, means that we can offer the very best and latest care for our women and babies. Having more detailed images of babies’ brains is so important for us in diagnosing and treating complex conditions, especially being able to see tiny features is crucial in looking after premature and tiny babies.”

Read the full article on kcl.ac.uk

Fetal brain scan research examines early indicators of autism

In a paper published in Nature, King’s researchers from Centre for the Developing Brain have discovered evidence supporting an association between isolated ventriculomegaly and autism traits.

The study followed two groups of children, one with a normal fetal brain MR assessment and those with an antenatal diagnosis of isolated ventriculomegaly, with a developmental follow up assessments at 2 years of age and primary school age. Participating children were initially scanned as fetuses then tested with a range of developmental measures including IQ, autism traits, sustained attention, neurological functioning, behaviour, executive function, sensory processing, co-ordination and adaptive behaviours.

Fetal ventriculomegaly is the most common antenatally-diagnosed brain abnormality and is diagnosed when the lateral ventricles measure larger than normal on antenatal ultrasound or MR imaging. This study demonstrates an association between this most common developmental fetal brain anomaly and autism traits. The results may improve counselling for families and aid early identification, support and intervention, with further research warranted to confirm initial findings within a larger population. The Centre for the Developing Brain is part of the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences and has advanced MR imaging facilities, including a novel fetal imaging capability and a new dedicated MR imaging suite sited within the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St Thomas’ Hospital.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the families who participated in this study. This study was supported by the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centre for Medical Engineering at Kings College London and the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

Read the full article on kcl.ac.uk