PDF In Cardiac Hybrid PET/MRI (Siemens MMR) In London Canada
Lawson Health Research Institute (London, Ontario) in association with Multi-Magnetics Inc (MMI, London, Ontario) are offering a two-year Post-Doctoral Fellowship (PDF) in the area of cardiac PET/MRI. The PDF will join a city wide imaging research program including state of the art research imaging platforms (whole body and small animal PET/MRI, PET/CT, 3TMRI and 256 slice CT systems) and engage with 20 plus PhDs (medical physicists, molecular biologists and radiochemists) and MD imaging researchers along with more than 100 plus trainees (PDFs and GSs) with an onsite medical cyclotron, small animal and large animal facilities and prototyping facilities. Postdoctoral Project Imaging scientists at the Lawson Health Research Institute are developing PET-MRI methods for studying biological changes in cardiac tissue following myocardial infarction in animal models. Such studies will provide insight for determining the optimal timing of pharmacological interventions aimed at preventing heart failure. This postdoctoral project focuses on further development and optimization of tools for advancement of cardiac PET-MRI studies using advanced technical features of a Siemens Biograph PET/MRI and a new cardiac 32 channel PET-MRI coil. The major components of this work include the following: (1) Performance evaluation of our cardiac PET-MRI coil, on phantoms, large animals and humans to establish key characteristics of the coil that will inform its optimal use for this work. (2) Further development and optimization of a method for acquiring three-dimensional (3D) maps of the T1 relaxation time in the heart. This is required for pharmacokinetic analysis of dynamic contrast enhanced 3D dynamic contrast enhanced MRI to match 3D PET acquisition. (3) Further development of an integrated PET-MRI pharmacokinetic model analysis specifically tailored for the type of MRI contrast agent and PET agent infusion used in these studies. The model will be implemented for analysis of the fully 3D PET-MRI data. The Postdoctoral fellow will take the lead in preparing manuscripts for peer review publication regarding the applications of PET/MRI in Cardiac evaluations.
Required Qualifications: Ph.D. in medical imaging, biophysics, bioengineering or related field with a thesis involving MRI Proven written and oral communication skills Preferred Additional Requirements Familiarity with Siemens 1.5 and 3.0 T MRI systems Proven ability to design and understand cardiac MRI pulse sequences Understanding of cardiac anatomy and physiology Experience with hybrid PET/MRI Experience with cardiac PET.
Contacts: Frank S Prato PhD, FCCPM, ABMP, FCOMP, FURSI (prato@lawsonimaging.ca) R Terry Thompson PhD, President and CEO of MMI (thompson@lawsonimaging.ca)
