Introduction to Biomedical Imaging

Imaging technologies form a significant component of the health budgets of all developed economies, and most people have need of advanced imaging during their life. All of us are aware of the misinformation sometimes portrayed in TV dramas, which either exaggerates the benefits or overemphasises the risks.

This course provides an introduction to biomedical imaging and modern imaging modalities. The course also covers the basic scientific principals behind each modality, and introduces some of the key applications, from neurological diseases to cancers. This course includes modules specially designed for the general public, whilst also providing some advanced modules which could contribute to professional development in health, engineering and IT industries.

What you'll learn

Professor Graham Galloway is Group Leader for Biomedical Imaging and Spectroscopy at the Centre for Advanced Imaging, UQ. His research interests include the use of in vivo Magnetic Resonance to test the efficacy of pharmaceutical agents, novel applications for the use of Magnetic Resonance in physiological studies and material sciences, and in pushing the boundaries of the technology into new applications. His role in all projects is characterised by his multidisciplinary background, which ensures that he is able to draw together these apparently disparate threads. Professor Galloway is also Director of Operations for the National Imaging Facility (NIF). NIF now has 10 nodes across Australia, delivering MRI, PET, CT, Ultrasound and Live animal optical imaging to the Australian research community. Professor Galloway is also the Program Director for the Master of Molecular Imaging, a collaborative degree with the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney.

David Reutens
Professor David Reutens is the inaugural director of the Centre for Advanced Imaging (CAI) and Foundation Professor of Experimental Neurology at The University of Queensland. Prior to this he was the Professor of Neuroscience at Monash University and Director of Neurology at Southern Health. As a clinical neurologist Prof Reutens specializes in epilepsy and is a senior staff specialist at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. Professor Reutens’s research involves the combination of imaging techniques to study functions such as memory in the healthy brain, the mechanisms behind diseases such as epilepsy and stroke and how the brain responds to overcome injury. Some of the research studies involve patients with injuries or genetic mutations that affect brain function, and these studies are able to provide privileged insights into how the brain works. He directs the Australian Mouse Brain Mapping Consortium. With his collaborators, he uses imaging to study animal models of disease. Members of his group are working on ways of improving imaging technology.

Ian Brereton
Professor Ian Brereton is the Director, Research and Technology, for the Centre for Advanced Imaging, the Director of the Queensland node for the National Imaging Facility and the Director of the Queensland NMR Network.

He has over 20 year experience in the application of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance to the biomedical and chemical sciences. His current research interests are in preclinical molecular imaging, development of molecular imaging agents and biomarkers in animal models of neurodegeneration and cancer, localised MR spectroscopy, metabolomics and structural biology by MR spectroscopy, and magnetic resonance engineering.

Gail Durbridge
Gail Durbridge is a Senior Research Radiographer, and is the Program Coordinator for the Magnetic Resonance Technology suite of programs at the Centre for Advanced Imaging, The University of Queensland. She trained in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) at The Wesley Hospital, and did her undergraduate radiography training at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Melbourne. Gail is accredited as both an MRI radiographer and an ultrasonographer. Her MR interests are in the areas of musculoskeletal and neuroimaging.

Karine Mardon
Dr Karine Mardon is the Facility Fellow for the preclinical PET/CT for the Queensland Node of the National Imaging Facility (NIF), at the Centre for Advanced Imaging, The University of Queensland. Dr Mardon obtained her PhD in radiopharmacology from University Paris XII in 1994. In 1995, she pursued postdoctoral studies at ANSTO (Sydney) in the Radiopharmaceutical Division where she gained experience in the development and characterisation of radiopharmaceuticals for SPECT and PET. She has extensive experience in in vitro and in vivo preclinical research particularly in the evaluation of drugs developed for the study of movement disorders as well as in the evaluation of radiolabelled peripheral benzodiazepine receptor ligands as markers of neurodegeneration and tumour occurrence. She has collaborated with many scientists leading the field in nuclear medicine in Australia and internationally.

Damion Stimson
Damion Stimson is a Research Radiochemist, in the Centre for Advanced Imaging (CAI), at The University of Queensland. He has over 17 years of experience in radiopharmaceutical science, having worked with ANSTO's Australian Radioisotopes and National Medical Cyclotron, Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital and more recently at Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in the manufacture and development of Single Photon Emission Computerised Tomography (SPECT) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) based radiopharmaceuticals for clinical application and for research. Damion is the Facility Manager of the radioisotope laboratories at CAI. His role includes operation of the cyclotron and radiopharmaceutical production and quality control to support research programmes requiring radiopharmaceuticals, and to conduct research in the development of novel radioligands.

Rajiv Bhalla
Dr Rajiv Bhalla was recruited to the Centre for Advanced Imaging (CAI) at the University of Queensland in 2013 to lead the PET and SPECT radiochemistry programs. Prior to joining the CAI, Rajiv was employed as a Radiochemistry Specialist at GE Healthcare and has more than 10 years of experience in the development of PET & SPECT radiotracers. He is an experienced scientist with more than 20 patents and the focus of his research interests ranges from early stage research to translation of radiotracers into the clinic. In particular his research interests focus on developing more effective routes to tracer production by developing new labelling methodologies and designing simpler platforms for this chemistry.

Andrew Janke
Dr Andrew Janke is the Facility Fellow for Informatics at the Queensland Node of the National Imaging Facility (NIF) based at the Centre for Advanced Imaging, The University of Queensland. He has worked in the area of MRI, CT and PET image acquisition and post-processing in large study cohorts for over 15 years in both Canada and Australia. He has a strong interest in open source imaging datasets and analysis code and to this end has published and released a number of free models of normative structure and is currently the lead maintainer of the MINC imaging analysis toolbox, a free software that is used for conversion, viewing, editing, registering, segmentation, and a wide array of analysis.