Active Research
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Key Collaborators: Ramsey Badawi collaborates with numerous investigators across the School of Medicine, the College of Engineering and the School for Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis. He also has active collaborations with investigators at Yale, UCSF, UTSW, UPenn, Harvard, University of Vienna, and Zhongshan Hospital, Shanghai. Industrial collaborators currently include United Imaging Healthcare, ImaginAb and Cellsight. Research Pursuits: Badawi's research interests are focused on the development and application of new types of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging scanners. He is currently working on developing a PET scanner insert for a pre-clinical MRI scanner, a toolkit for PET imaging in developing countries, and a high-performance PET brain scanner (in collaboration with Yale). Badawi is the co-inventor of Total-Body PET, along with Simon Cherry, Ph.D.; the two scientists co-direct the EXPLORER Molecular Imaging Center, which conducts cutting edge research in Molecular Imaging as well as providing the latest PET technology imaging services to patients. Badawi is currently conducting or participating in research in oncology, cardiac disease, liver disease, traumatic brain injury, infectious disease, arthritis, metabolism and the mind/body connection, as well as in PET imaging methods development. |
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Research Pursuits: |
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Key Collaborators: Siba P. Raychaudhuri, M.D. (UC Davis – Rheumatology, Sacramento VA Medical Center), John H. Morrison, Ph.D. (UC Davis – Neurology, CNPRC), Pamela J. Lein, Ph.D. (UC Davis – School of Veterinary Medicine, Molecular Biosciences), Ramsey D. Badawi, Ph.D. (UC Davis – Radiology), Simon R. Cherry, Ph.D. (UC Davis – Radiology and Biomedical Engineering), Anand A. Joshi, Ph.D. (USC – Electrical Engineering), Krishna Nayak, Ph.D., (USC – Electrical Engineering), Robert D. Boutin, M.D. (Stanford University – Radiology), Richard M. Leahy, Ph.D. (USC – Electrical Engineering), Robert M. Szabo, M.D., M.P.H. (UC Davis – Orthopedic Surgery), Christopher O. Bayne, M.D. (UC Davis – Orthopedic Surgery), Donald Smith (UCSC – Microbiology & Environmental Toxicology). Research Pursuits: Pursuits: Chaudhari’s research focuses on the development of novel in vivo medical imaging techniques, with emphasis on disorders of the musculoskeletal and neurological systems. The development of these techniques is enabled through fundamentally advancing medical imaging instrumentation, acquisition, and image and data processing. His current projects include the validation of imaging measures as biomarkers in the context of arthritis, sarcopenia, neurodegeneration, and exposure to environmental toxins. Chaudhari also serves as the Director of the UC Davis Center for Molecular and Genomic Imaging and is a Core Scientist at the California National Primate Research Center. |
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Key Collaborators: Ramsey Badawi, Guobao Wang, Jinyi Qi (BME), Emilie Roncali, Lorenzo Nardo, Abhijit Chaudhari Research Pursuits: Simon Cherry was trained in Medical Physics and his interests are centered around developing new technologies for biomedical imaging, with a focus on molecular imaging and nuclear medicine. His laboratory is developing detectors that exploit ultra-fast Cerenkov light emission to develop next generation technology for positron emission tomography (PET). Cherry’s laboratory also is developing high resolution detectors from preclinical and human brain imaging. Together with Ramsey Badawi, he directs the EXPLORER Molecular Imaging Center, home to the world’s first total-body PET scanner. In this capacity, he is involved in methodological research to optimize the quantitative performance of the scanner for a wide variety of research applications including infectious disease and cardiovascular disease, as well as for multi-organ and systems imaging in a range of chronic disorders. Cherry also is a participant in a multi-institutional project to develop a next generation brain imager, the NeuroEXPLORER, which will image the human brain with unprecedented levels of sensitivity. |
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Key Collaborators: Michael Campbell, Claire Graves, Guobao Wang, Souvik Sarkar, Thomas Loehfelm Research Pursuits: Michael Corwin’s main research interests are focused on adrenal imaging and the management of incidental findings on abdominal imaging studies. He is currently the co-chair of the Adrenal Neoplasm Disease Focused Panel of the Society of Abdominal Radiology where he will lead and participate in multiple multi-institutional research projects aimed at advancing adrenal imaging. Corwin’s work on incidental findings primarily focuses on abdominal CT, assessing hepatobiliary, adrenal, and renal incidentalomas. In conjunction with Guobao Wang and Souvik Sarkar, Corwin is also involved in advanced imaging of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease utilizing dynamic PET/CT and MR elastography. |
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Key Collaborators: YoungKyoo Jung, Ph.D. (UC Davis – Radiology), Shaihan J. Malik, Ph.D. (King’s College London- Biomedical Engineering), Joseph V. Hajnal, Ph.D. (King’s College London- Biomedical Engineering), Ramsey D. Badawi, Ph.D. (UC Davis – Radiology), Simon R. Cherry, Ph.D. (UC Davis – Radiology and Biomedical Engineering), Greig Scott, Ph.D. (Stanford University – Electrical Engineering), Steven Hetts, M.D., (UCSF – Interventional Neuroradiology), Alastair Martin, Ph.D. (UCSF – Radiology and Biomedical Imaging) Research Pursuits: Dr. Godinez’s research focuses on the development of novel in vivo medical imaging techniques, with emphasis on treating disease in the brain and the heart. The development of these techniques is enabled through fundamentally advancing Magnetic Resonance (MR) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging instrumentation, acquisition, and image and data processing. His current projects include the use of parallel transmit MR for the safe visualization of endovascular devices and the development of MR imaging protocols for real-time interventional procedures in the heart, and he is interested in translating these methods to neurosurgical procedures. He is also co-developing a PET insert for simultaneous PET/MR imaging in small animals. He is interested in the combined use of PET/MR to explore MR based therapeutic biomarkers in neuro-oncologic disease. |
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Key Collaborators: Ramsey Badawi, Lorenzo Nardo, Abhijit Chaudhari, Yasser Abdelhafez, Cathy Zhou, Li Yang, Richard Clark, Felipe Godinez, Andrea Ferrero Research Pursuits: Rosalie Hagge’s research interests include psychovisual evaluation of medical image quality, applications in total body PET, oncology, coronary artery disease, arthritis, and metabolism. As a primarily clinical radiologist in the specialty of Nuclear Medicine, Hagge has a supportive role in ongoing clinical and instrumentation related research. |
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Andrew M. Hernandez, Ph.D. Key Collaborators: John M. Boone, Ph.D. (UC Davis); Craig K. Abbey, Ph.D. (UCSB); Jeffrey H. Siewerdsen, Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins); Stanley H. Benedict, Ph.D. (UC Davis). Research Pursuits: Andrew Hernandez’s research focuses on the development of dosimetry methodologies in diagnostic radiology and radiation therapy using Monte Carlo techniques. His research interests are also focused on image quality evaluation and optimization of x-ray and PET imaging systems. He is currently working on task-based protocol optimization for a breast cone-beam CT system, image quality evaluation of a clinical high-resolution CT system, and deep learning applications to improve image quality in breast x-ray imaging. |
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Terry Jones, D.Sc. Key Collaborators: These include Ramsey Badawi and Simon Cherry at UC Davis, plus other individuals in Radiology and Bioengineering engaged in advancing Total Body PET methodology and applications. This is furthered by providing mentoring and support for junior staff in grant applications, and publication writing. Discussions with individuals in the departments of oncology and medicine are on-going as are those on COVID-19 research with the department of Virology in the Division of Experimental Medicine at UCSF. Here collaboration with the company ImaginAb developing PET markers of immune cells is destined to be important. The collaboration within the NIH funded Yale/Davis/United Imaging Healthcare consortium, headed by Richard Carson at Yale, on building the next generation PET brain scanner is gaining momentum. Here there are plans to reach out to potential internationally collaborators in exploiting this unique advanced brain imaging technology. In the UK, collaboration with the oncologist Professor Pat Price forms the link with Imperial College London and plans for installing a Total Body PET national research facility. Since 2016, working closely with the radiology company United Imaging Healthcare proved fruitful in realizing the first Total Body PET scanner and is now ongoing with new brain PET scanner. Research Pursuits: Jones’s research interests lie in fostering the advancement of PET methodologies and their applications in clinical research. While UK based, he has, since 2013, been a visiting professor in the Department of Radiology at UC Davis Health and alongside Ramsey Badawi has linked with Simon Cherry at the Department of Bioengineering in developing the case for building the World’s first Total Body PET scanner. This culminated in the scanner being installed at UC Davis in 2019. His ongoing focus is identifying and formulating paradigms for potentially impacting clinical research applications of this scanner. These currently cover brain-body, oncology, combined radiation and immunotherapy, and COVID-19 research studies. He has interests in supporting how UC Davis’s expertise for pre-clinical PET scanner technology could be further exploited and is an advisor/observer within the development of the next generation of a dedicated high-performance PET brain scanner-in collaboration with Yale. A broadening interest is communicating the potential of these advanced PET scanner methodologies to the international community through presentations and publications. |
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Research Pursuits: Percutaneous Interventional Techniques. John McGahan has published 300 peer-reviewed publications focusing on different aspects of Body Imaging and image-guided procedures. He pioneered the use of percutaneous techniques for tumor ablation and has most recently published his cumulative data on percutaneous ablation of renal cell carcinoma. He has translational research in development of other image-guided innovations including percutaneous cholecystostomy and endocavitary biopsy and drainage techniques. He patented a specific ultrasound system for guidance of these techniques. McGahan continues working on new devices for improving percutaneous interventional techniques and is also active in research into various methods to better understand imaging findings in different abdominal and pelvic cancers. |
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Key Collaborators: Catherine Vu (UC Davis Interventional Radiology), Simon Cherry (UC Davis Biomedical Engineering), Ramsey Badawi (UC Davis Radiology), Cameron Foster (UC Davis Nuclear Medicine), Roger Goldman (UC Davis Interventional Radiology), William Culp (UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine), Stanley Benedict (UC Davis Radiation Oncology), Julie Sutcliffe (UC Davis Hematology/Oncology), Justin Knebel (VA Northern California), Sara St James (UCSF) Research Pursuits: Emilie Roncali's research involves molecular imaging and therapy, with an emphasis on new technology for positron emission tomography (PET) and quantitative dosimetry for radionuclide therapy. She has a joint Faculty appointment with the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis. Roncali has developed optical models for Monte Carlo simulation of PET detectors and applies these models to the optimization of fast and ultra-fast detectors. Her simulation tools are frequently released in opensource software broadly used the field of nuclear medicine technology development. Roncali currently focuses her research developments on personalized dosimetry for radiopharmaceutical therapy (RPT). She is a member of two focus groups for the National Cancer Institute (NCI), as well as an investigator of the Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR) initiative to develop new dosimetry methods for RPT with the goal of improving treatment planning and optimizing TRT clinical trials. Specifically, she is developing image-based and simulation-based dosimetry for yttrium-90 radioembolization for advanced liver cancer treatment, and image-based dosimetry for Lu-177 therapy. |