*** FACULTY CANDIDATE ***

Francisco Contijoch, Ph.D.*

UC President’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow
UCSD IRACDA Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center,
   School of Medicine
University of California - San Diego

Developing New Views of the Heart

While cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of the death in the US, clinical and translational imaging plays a critical role in the early detection of disease, in the development of novel therapies, and in aiding our understanding of physiology. However, our ability to assess critical parameters can be limited by imaging constraints or physiologic confounders. To tackle these challenges, we develop novel image acquisition, processing, and analysis techniques to better quantify disease and provide patient-specific assessments.
 
In my talk, I will present techniques we developed to improve assessment of patients with coronary artery disease and patients with irregular heart rhythms. First, I will describe our work to improve coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA), a non-invasive method to assess coronary disease. Next, I will discuss our imaging-based approach to obtain better measures of post-myocardial infarction cardiac function using real-time MRI.
 
Imaging patients with arrhythmias is challenging due to limitations in how images are acquired and the fact that these patients can have multiple types of heartbeats. I will describe how we designed a technique to improve the quality of images and how we quantified cardiac function of different beat types.  Finally, I will outline future plans to use imaging to tackle clinical challenges faced when assessing the right ventricle and pulmonary vasculature.

Host: Stanislav Emelianov, Ph.D.

Thursday, February 9
10:30 a.m.
McIntire Room 3115,
Whitaker Bldg.

Videoconference:
Emory: HSRB E182
Georgia Tech: TEP 104