Medical Imaging Systems Laboratory

at Marquette University

About

Lab Photo

Our laboratory focuses on the design and optimization of medical imaging systems and reconstruction algorithms, with the goal of improving image quality and reducing radiation dose.

We apply theoretical, computational, and experimental methods to Computed Tomography (CT), tomosynthesis, and X-ray imaging.

Our collaborators include Medical College of Wisconsin, University of Chicago, and industry partners.

Recent News

2020 Annual RSNA Meeting

For the fifth straight year, MISL director Taly Schmidt presented a Refresher Course at the 2020 Radiological Society of North America annual meeting. This year's featured course was on Dual- and Multi-Energy CT Innovations, with presentations by Dr. Schmidt, Dr. Ken Taguchi (Johns Hopkins) and Dr. J. G. Fletcher (Mayo) and moderated by Dr. Lifeng Yu (Mayo). While Thanksgiving weekend just wasn't the same without the iconic RSNA meeting in Chicago, it was a great honor to present this course virtually.

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Research presented at the 2020 CT Meeting

Post Doc Sara Principi gave an excellent presentation on her latest work validating our rapid radiation dose map estimation using an LBTE solver in a talk titled. "Deterministic Boltzmann Transport Equation Solver for Patient-specific CT Dose Estimation: Validation for Realistic Scanner Configurations." University of Chicago undergrad student Emily Paul presented an impressive talk on our collaboration with Emil Sidky on Photon-Counting CT calibration in a talk titled, "Spectral Calibration and Non-Linear Intensity Correction of Photon-Counting Detectors for Spectral CT."

The latest results from our CT organ dose U01 project presented at AAPM 2020 Annual Meeting

Post Doc Sara Principi and former Varian engineer and soon-to-be Stanford graduate student Phil Adamson each presented a talk at the 2020 American Association of Physicists in Medicine annual meeting. Sara's talk, "Experimental validation of a linear Boltzmann transport equation solver for rapid CT dose map generation," focused on the radiation dose map development, while Phil's talk, "Impact of CT Scanner Acquisition and Reconstruction Methods on Pediatric Organ Autosegmentation Model Generalizability," described our research on Deep Learning organ segmentation. This project is in collaboration with Varian Medical Systems, Children's Wisconsin, and Stanford University.

Just published! New book on CT with chapter by Taly Gilat Schmidt

An excellent new book on CT imaging has just been published: "Computed Tomography: Approaches, Applications, and Operations." The book includes a chapter of photon-counting CT written by Taly Gilat Schmidt. For more info or to order a copy, click here.

New grant from GE Healthcare

Taly Gilat Schmidt has been awarded a grant from GE Healthcare for year project on "Advanced Spectral CT Algorithms." We look forward to continuing our productive collaborations with GE.

MISL presentations at 2020 SPIE Medical Imaging Meeting

Undergraduate student Michael Offe presented his research in a poster titled, "Evaluation of deep learning segmentation for rapid, patient-specific CT organ dose estimation using an LBTE solver." Taly Gilat Schmidt presented a talk on the newest results of our photon-counting CT collaboration with University of Chicago titled, "Spectral CT metal artifact reduction using weighted masking and a 'One Step' direct inversion reconstruction algorithm." Both presentations shared results of our NIH-funded projects.

MISL presentations at 2019 RSNA Annual Meeting

Taly Gilat Schmidt presented the latest in our Spectral CT Reconstruction research at the 2019 RSNA meeting in a talk titled, "Material decomposition of clinical full-field photon counting CT data using a One-step direct estimation approach." This work was a collaboration Emil Sidky and Rina Foygel Barber at the University of Chicago and Prismatic Sensors and KTH in Sweden. Taly Gilat Schmidt also presented a Refresher Course on Multi and Dual Energy Systems.

Congratulations Dr. Zimmerman!

Congratulations to MISL graduate student Kevin Zimmerman on the successful completion of his PhD Dissertation titled "Machine Learning Methods of Material Decomposition in Spectral Computed Tomography Using Photon-Counting Detectors." Best of luck in your position at Canon Medical Research USA!

Research on rapid, patient-specific organ dose estimation tools presented at 2019 AAPM Annual Meeting

July 2019: Post-Doc Sara Principi presented a talk titled, "Modeling CT scanner complexities using deterministic Linear Boltzmann Transport Equation solver for patient-specific CT dose estimation," at the 2019 AAPM Annual Meeting in San Antonio. Sara's research is validating a rapid dose map estimation tool based on the Linear Boltzmann Transport Equation, as part of our U01 project in collaboration with Varian Medical Systems, Medical College of Wisconsin, Children's Hospital of Wisconin, and Stanford University.

NIH R01 Grant Award

July 2019: Taly Gilat Schmidt (MU) and Emil Sidky (University of Chicago) have been awarded a $1.4 million U01 grant from the NIH entitled, "Spectral CT Metal Artifact Correction." This project will develop CT imaging and reconstruction methods to reduce metal artifacts while maintaining image fidelity. We are excited to start this four year collaboration between Marquette, University of Chicago, and the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Spectral CT work presented at CERN

May 2019: The newest results of our research on photon-counting spectral CT imaging, in collaboration with Emil Sidky and Rina Foygel Barber at the University of Chicago, were presented at the 5th Workshop on Medical Applications of Spectroscopic X-ray Detectors at CERN Lab. The talk, presented by Taly Gilat Schmidt, was titled "Combined empirical and model-based estimation of photon-counting detector spectral response for quantitative material decomposition."

CT Radiation Dose Research Presentation

April 2019: Taly Gilat Schmidt presented an educational talk on CT radiation dose and our NIH U01-funded research to estimate patient-specific dose estimation as part of the Medical College of Wisconsin Conversations with Scientists program. The talk, which was broadcast across Wisconsin and simulcast online, is available for viewing here.

2019 SPIE Medical Imaging Meeting

February 2019: Exciting MISL research results were presented at the SPIE Medical Imaging conference. Undergraduate student Parker Jenkins presented a talk on "Experimental study of neural network material decomposition to account for pulse-pileup effects in photon-counting spectral CT." Postdoc Hongfeng Ma presented a poster on "Using one test bolus to monitor bolus arriving at two locations in CT angiography runoff scans: a feasibility simulation study."