Past Events

Thursday 27th May 2021

2pm – 3pm

We are delighted to welcome, Dr Esther Puyol and Dr Bram Ruijsink presenting a talk titled:

“A clinical tool for automated analysis of Cardiac MR using Quality-Controlled AI”

Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) plays a central role in diagnosis and management decisions for patient with heart failure. In our talk, we will show how we use robust quality control and generalizable, interpretable AI models to train robust tools to automatically collect a large set of new biomarkers from cine CMR images to inform diagnosis and treatment decisions by clinicians.

 Dr Bram Ruijsink is a cardiologist in training at University Medical Centre Utrecht, the Netherlands and post-doctoral clinical fellow at the School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging sciences at King’s, focussing his research on application of AI in cardiac imaging. Dr Esther Puyol is a CME fellow at the School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences at King’s College London. Her main focus is developing new interpretable and quality-controlled AI systems for clinical application.

They have been collaborating over the last 4 years and together they have developed novel image computing and AI algorithms for medical image analysis, and applying them for better understanding and treatment of patients with heart failure.

Following the talk (45mins) there will be a Q&A (15mins)

Friday 14th May 2021

10:45am – 11:30am

Please join us to hear Vice-President & Vice-Principal (Research) Reza Razavi outline the new opportunities for research staff followed by a Q&A session.

You can submit questions in advance by emailing cme@kcl.ac.uk by 5pm on Thursday 13th May, or post them in the chat on the day

Tuesday 27th April, 2021
2:00pm-5:30pm

Thursday 15th April, 2021
2:00pm-3:00pm

We are delighted to welcome, Jonathan O’Muircheartaigh and Jana Hutter presenting a talk titled:

“Fellowships: The good the bad and the ugly”

The aim of this session will be to go through some of the schemes available, the common aspects to them and cover the advantages / disadvantages. We’ll also go through the practical things of preparing for an application.

Note: Wellcome are having a special seminar on the 12th of April explaining their new funding schemes including the new post-doctoral scheme.

https://www.wellcomeevents.org/wellcome/frontend/reg/thome.csp?pageID=263467&eventID=798&traceRedir=2

This session will be aimed at PhD students and post-docs.

Following the talk (45mins) there will be a Q&A (15mins)

Wednesday 24th March, 2021
3:00pm-4:00pm

We are delighted to welcome, Jeremie Clement and Ozlem Ipek presenting a talk titled:

“A dedicated volume RF coil for infant brain and heart MR at 7T – RF and mechanical aspects for safe MR imaging”

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the developing brain and heart is an active research topic and has the potential to detect e.g. early brain injuries or to assess cardiovascular abnormalities. The studies are usually performed at 3T. However, in the last years there has been an increasing interest in 7T MR scanners as it promises higher signal-to-noise ratio, contrast-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution. These advantages could particularly benefit neonatal MR imaging. In this presentation, we introduce the first volume RF coil array, based on dipoles, and dedicated to neonatal brain and cardiac MR at 7T. We will look at the main challenges, notably in terms of power deposition in the tissue. The mechanical structure to hold the infants body will also be introduced with the engineering and practical aspects involved in the design.

Following the talk (45mins) there will be a Q&A (15mins)

Wednesday 24th February, 2021
2:00pm-3:00pm

We are delighted to welcome, Pablo Lamata, Alice Taylor-Gee, Salomé Bazin and Samantha Johnson presenting a talk titled:

“Adventures in Public Engagement”

It’s National Heart Month so why not come along to the next CME Seminar all about engaging the public about our heart research? Learn about public engagement (PE) as an activity that, beyond the impact on society, brings value to researchers by:

• creating sparkles, waves that resonate and lead to innovation;
• recharging and expanding our personal motivation batteries;
• building the insights that would otherwise take us years to recognise;
• building the network of stakeholders that is actually needed to address healthcare challenges.

Hear about the PE adventures that academic Prof Pablo Lamata has had working with designer Salome Bazin and Evelina Children’s Heart Organisation CEO Samantha Johnson. Facilitated by our PE Manager Alice Taylor-Gee.: Public Engagement – CMIB

Following the talk (45mins) there will be a Q&A (15mins)

Wednesday 17th February, 2021
2:00pm-3:00pm

We are excited to announce Jackie Hunter (Board Director of BenevolentAI) will be presenting a Career talk titled:

AI: Adaptability and innovation? gaining insight into a fascinating and progressing career

In this career talk about her journey to from a behavioural pharmacologist to embracing the importance of AI in healthcare and drug discovery and development, Jackie Hunter will share some of the key things she has learnt on the way. These will include reflections on resilience, fluidity between academia and industry, fostering innovation and adapting to change.

Following Jackie Hunter’s talk (45mins) there will be a Q&A (15mins)

Wednesday 27th January, 2021
2:00pm-3:00pm

We are delighted to welcome, Teresa Correia presenting a talk titled:

“High-resolution quantitative first-pass perfusion cardiac MRI”

Quantitative first-pass perfusion cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (FPP-CMR) is one of the methods of choice for evaluating myocardial ischemia. However, FP-CMR time frames must be acquired in real-time to capture the rapid passage of a contrast agent bolus through the heart whilst patients hold their breath, and hence, the spatial resolution and coverage of the heart is compromised. Moreover, perfusion abnormalities are often identified visually and thus, diagnostic accuracy is dependent on the level of training and experience of the operator. In this talk, Teresa will describe automatic quantitative methods that have been proposed, as part of her CME fellowship, to achieve an operator-independent assessment of myocardial perfusion without patients having to hold their breath, and to generate images with improved spatial resolution and heart coverage.

Following the talk (45mins) there will be a Q&A (15mins)

Wednesday 9th December,2020
2pm-3:00pm

We are delighted to welcome, Emil Ljungberg, Tobias Wood and Nikou Damestani together presenting a talk titled:

 “Silence is Golden: An insight into neuroimaging applications with low acoustic noise techniques”

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners produce loud acoustic noise during data acquisition, caused by vibrations within the scanner hardware. These vibrations can be reduced using zero echo time (ZTE) pulse sequences, which enable efficient imaging with minimal acoustic noise. In this talk we will describe the concepts behind these pulse sequences, overall named as “silent MRI”, and their applications for structural and functional neuroimaging. We will describe how to achieve commonly used structural image contrasts including: proton density, T1, T2, magnetisation transfer, and T2*. We will also highlight recent advancements in silent fMRI in healthy participants using a ZTE-base technique known as Looping Star.

Following the talk (45mins) there will be a Q&A (15mins)

Wednesday 11th November,2020
2pm-3:00pm

We are delighted to welcome Phil Blower, Paul Marsden and Andrew Reader together presenting a talk on “The MITHRaS Programme”

The aim of MITHRAS Programme is to make molecular imaging economic and accessible to patients by developing new, fast and easy-to-use chemistry for synthesis of radiopharmaceuticals in hospitals and centralised radiopharmacies. These innovations will empower emerging scanning technologies (notably Total Body PET and PET-MRI) and new therapeutic radionuclides to achieve the maximum impact on the management of patients with cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease and other diseases with high socioeconomic impact. Total Body PET in particular is a game-changing technology which will enable PET to generate major new insights into human biology and disease if supported by dedicated new tracer development and novel imaging physics and informatics. In this presentation we will outline how MITHRAS plans to develop these innovations in radiochemistry, biology and physics needed to realise this potential.

The programme has teams of researchers at King’s College London, Imperial College London and the University of Southampton, and is partnered with 16 additional industrial and academic institutions all working together to deliver new radiotracers to clinic. 

Agenda:

Phil Blower: Chemistry & Biology

Paul Marsden : Total body PET challenges

Andrew Reader: Deep learning reconstruction for multi-tracer imaging

Wednesday 21st October
2pm-3:00pm

Network Based Data Integration

Mansoor Saqi, Head of Translational Bioinformatics/ Honorary Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London

Two important challenges in precision medicine are the identification of disease subtypes, and the contextualisation of the molecular signatures associated with these subtypes to gain mechanistic insight. Network-based approaches can help to address both these challenges. We discuss the integration of multiple heterogenous datatypes for patient stratification, and the application of graphs for knowledge representation when exploring biological context.

July 8th, 2020

In September 2012, the Wellcome Trust (WT) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) launched a one-off initiative to support development of innovative engineering solutions to intractable problems in medicine and public health.

In response to this challenge, a KCL-led consortium was created, involving Imperial College, Florence University, Toronto Hospital for sick kids and GSTT, and The iFIND (intelligent Fetal Imaging and Diagnosis)  Project was proposed with the goal of  radically changing current antenatal screening practice, focusing on the anomaly scan which is routinely performed by ultrasound (US) at around 20 weeks gestational age.

June 22nd, 2020

The Developing Human Connectome Project (dHCP), led by King’s College London and including Imperial College London and Oxford University aims to make major scientific progress by creating the first 4-dimensional connectome of early life.

Our goal is to create a dynamic map of human brain connectivity from 20 to 44 weeks post-conceptional age, which will link together imaging, clinical, behavioural, and genetic information.

This unique setting, with imaging and collateral data in an expandable open-source informatics structure, will permit wide use by the scientific community, and to undertake pioneer studies into normal and abnormal development by studying well-phenotyped and genotyped group of infants with specific genetic and environmental risks that could lead to Autistic Spectrum Disorder or Cerebral Palsy.

Wednesday May 6th 2020

The Gift-Surg (Guided Instrumentation for Fetal Therapy and Surgery) project aims at building a novel platform to transform the safety and efficacy of fetal surgery. GIFT-Surg is led by Prof Ourselin at KCL in collaboration with UCL, KU Leuven and UZ Leuven in Belgium, Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London Hospital.

Our vision is to  develop new instrumentation and software that will provide unprecedented capabilities for operating in utero, including enhanced pre-operative surgical planning, intraoperative guidance and advanced manipulation capabilities. Dr Andrew Melbourne and Dr Wenfeng Xia are project co-investigators leading on placenta MRI and ultrasonic needle tracking, respectively. They will present recent results of the work of their teams, currently undergoing pre-clinical validation.

Thursday 25 October 2018

Ondaatje Theatre
Royal Geographical Society
1 Kensington Gore
SW7 2AR London

Website: See Eventbrite for info and tickets

Professor Steve Williams will be taking part in this public and patient engagement event, with his talk: Imaging the Brain – Drumming up a Connection
Presenting an evening at the intersection of art and science!
Rewired features leading neuroscience researchers, artists, patient-advocates, and tech innovators each with a story to tell from a unique perspective!

Topics:

• Neuroimaging and drumming
• Disability and journalism
• Cycle of diagnosis, lived experience and dance
• Exploring natural treatments in clinic and poetry
• Diverse representation and fashion
• Designing for disability

Monday 9 – Thursday 12 July

King’s College London,
Franklin-Wilkins Building,
Stamford Street,
London SE1 9NN

Website: http://www.nrm2018.org/

Follow us on Twitter: @_NRM18 

Our understanding of neuroreceptor function is largely based upon the study of isolated proteins in vitro. However,  brain neuroreceptors and molecular recognition sites should not only be studied in isolation in a test-tube.  They are part of a complex, dynamic and communicating environment that makes the living human brain  “the most sophisticated machine imaginable, or unimaginable.”  – Joseph LeDoux

Join us at this biennial meeting, dedicated to the study of neuroreceptors in the living human brain – ‘Mapping Neroreceptors at Work’. The scientific program of this meeting will be multidisciplinary and translational, with a focus on the latest research on the study of in vivo neurotransmission:

• In vivo receptor-receptor interactions and interneuronal communication
• In vivo normo/pathophysiology
• In vivo / in vitro discrepancies in molecular recognition
• Misfolded proteins in vivo
• In vivo human pharmacology
• Evaluation of new therapeutics in vivo

Monday 2 – Sunday 8 July

Royal Society
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London SW1Y 5AG

Summer Science Exhibition Website

Visit the Hot Stuff stand at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition (2-8 July 2018) and learn more about how radioactivity can improve clinical practice, provide precise diagnosis and deliver targeted medical treatment.

We have prepared a set of exciting activities and we look forward to sharing details about our research, as well as hear your thoughts on the role of radioactivity in healthcare and everyday life.

Check out the presentation video below, join our Twitter campaign by using #SummerScience #HotStuff and come to the Summer Science Exhibition to try the hands-on demos we have prepared for you!

Thursday 29 March, 12-1pm

Nevin Lecture Theatre, Ground Floor, East Wing, St Thomas’ Hospital
Live streamed to the Wolfson Lecture Theatre, Weston Education Centre, Denmark Hill

Join us to hear more about the research at the Centre for Medical Engineering.

Speakers:

• Dr Julia Blower
• Dr Pablo Lamata

Julia Blower: Julia leads Molecular Imaging within the Centre. She will present some upcoming CME projects.

Pablo Lamata: Pablo is a Research Fellow within the Biomedical Engineering Department. His research combines imaging and computational modeling to improve the management of cardiovascular disease.

Thursday 22 February, 12-1pm

Large seminar room, 4th floor Lambeth Wing

Join us to hear more about the research that the Centre for Medical Engineering is supporting. This month’s seminar gives us a chance to hear from some of the Centre’s leads, who will outline our initiatives in Computer Science, Physics and Engineering, and Neurology.

Speakers:

• Prof Julia Schnabel
• Prof Jo Hajnal
• Prof Steve Williams