Brilliant X-Rays for Medical Diagnostics and Biomedical Imaging Applications
Scientific Mission
The research activity of the team focusses on the development of new and advanced experimental and analysis imaging methods for an improved depiction and characterization of anatomy, pathology and treatment efficacy in human organs and in small animal models. Modern high-spatial-resolution and high-sensitivity radiologic methods enable increasingly detailed volumetric post-mortem investigations of for diagnostic, research, and educational purposes. The range of applications is wide and until now has included preclinical investigations on breast imaging, musculoskeletal and cartilage imaging, liver and lung imaging, neuroimaging and imaging for novel radiotherapy strategies. The group mainly develops around cutting-edge synchrotron radiation imaging setups, which are used for non-invasive and quantitative examinations of samples at various length scales ranging from full organs down to sub-cellular level (multi-scale, hierarchical imaging). The implemented methodologies are increasingly being exploited as a virtual histological tool for label-free, tissue-conserving 3D morphological visualizations and analyses of thick bio-samples.
Contact
Prof. Dr. Paola Coan
Head of "Brilliant X-Rays for Medical Diagnostics and Biomedical Imaging Applications"
Paola Coan is an Associate Professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University (double affiliation: Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Physics) where, since 2009, she has been leading the research group on brilliant X-Rays for medical diagnostics and biomedical imaging applications. She is one of the professors and principal investigators within the DFG Research Training Group GRK2274 (“Advanced Medical Physics for Image-Guided Cancer Therapy”) and faculty member of Faculty member of the International Max Planck Research School of Advanced Photon Science (IMPRS-APS). She is a visiting scientist at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF, France) and a member of the Academic Board of the Doctoral School in Neuroscience of the Bicocca University (Milan, Italy). She has been one of the project leaders within the German excellence cluster Munich center for Advance Photonics (MAP) at the LMU (2009-2019) and the chair person of the international User Organisation Committee of the ESRF (2014-2018). She has been a member of two European COST Actions focusing on synchrotron radiation based radiotherapy and advanced computed tomography methods and presently member of another COST Action on biomaterials and advanced physical techniques for regenerative cardiology and neurology. She acts as a reviewer for national and international funding agencies, including the European Commission. Her teaching activity revolves around theoretical and experimental aspects of X-ray physics for biomedicine, encompassing X-ray imaging techniques, radiotherapy and radiobiology. She studied Physics at the University of Padua (Italy) where she graduated in 2002 and earned her PhD at the University of Grenoble (Grenoble) in 2006. She is co-author of more than 80 peer-reviewed scientific papers and of book chapters on new X-ray imaging diagnostics methods, in particular on X-ray phase contrast imaging and medical applications of synchrotron radiation.
X-ray phase contrast 3D imaging of human spinal cord and column anatomy
Other links:
Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paola_Coan
YouTube channel: Brilliant X-rays for biomedical research
Publications (Selection)
2020
Barbone G.E., Bravin A, Mittone A., Grosu S., Ricke J., Cavaletti G., Djonov V., Coan P.: High spatial resolution 3D imaging of human spinal cord and column anatomy by post-mortem X-ray phase-contrast micro-CT. Radiology, (2020) https://doi.org/10.1148/radiol.2020201622
Stroebel J., Horng A., Armbruster M., Mittone A., Reiser M., Bravin A., Coan P.: Convolutional Neuronal Networks combined with X-Ray phase-contrast imaging for a fast and observer-independent discrimination of cartilage and liver diseases stages. Scientific Reports, 10(1):20007 (2020) doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-76937-y
Barbone G.E., Bravin A., Mittone A., Kraiger M.J., Hrabě de Angelis M., Bossi M., Ballarini E., Rodriguez-Menendez V., Ceresa C., Cavaletti G., Coan P.: Establishing sample-preparation protocols for X-ray phase-contrast CT of rodent spinal cords: Aldehyde fixations and osmium impregnation. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 339:108744 (2020) doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2020.108744. Epub 2020 Apr 27. PMID: 32353471
2018
Barbone G.E., Bravin A., Romanelli P., Mittone A., Bucci D., Gaaβ T., Le Duc G., Auweter S., Reiser M. F., Kraiger M. J., Hrabě de Angelis M., Battaglia G., Coan P.: Micro-imaging of Brain Cancer Radiation Therapy Using Phase-contrast Computed Tomography, Int. J. Radiat. Oncol. Biol. Phys., 101(4) (2018) 965-984. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijrobp.2018.03.063
2015
Gasilov S., Mittone A., Horng A., Bravin A., Baumbach T., Geith T., Reiser M., Coan P.: Boundary value problem for phase retrieval from unidirectional X-ray differential phase images. Opt. Express, 23(10) (2015) 13294-13308. DOI: 10.1364/OE.23.013294
2014
Horng, A., Brun, E., Mittone, A., Gasilov, S., Weber, L., Geith, T., Adam-Neumair, S., Auweter, S.D., Bravin, A., Reiser, M.F., Coan, P.: Cartilage and soft tissue imaging using X-rays: propagation-based phase-contrast computed tomography of the human knee in comparison with clinical imaging techniques and histology, Invest. Radiol. 49 (2014) 627–34. DOI: 10.1097/RLI.0000000000000063
2013
Bravin, A., Coan, P., Suortti, P.: X-ray phase-contrast imaging: from pre-clinical applications towards clinics, Phys. Med. Biol. 58 (2013) R1-35. DOI: 10.1088/0031-9155/58/1/R1
2012
Zhao, Y., Brun, E., Coan, P., Huang, Z., Sztrókay, A., Diemoz, P.C., Liebhardt, S., Mittone, A., Gasilov, S., Miao, J., Bravin, A.: High-resolution, low-dose phase contrast X-ray tomography for 3D diagnosis of human breast cancers, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 109 (2012) 18290–4. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1204460109
Diemoz, P.C., Bravin, A., Langer, M., Coan, P.: Analytical and experimental determination of signal-to-noise ratio and figure of merit in three phase-contrast imaging techniques, Opt. Express 20 (2012) 27670-27690. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.20.027670
2010
Coan, P., Wagner, A., Bravin, A., Diemoz, P.C., Keyriläinen, J., Mollenhauer, J.: In vivo x-ray phase contrast analyzer-based imaging for longitudinal osteoarthritis studies in guinea pigs, Phys Med Biol 55 (2010) 7649–62. DOI: 10.1088/0031-9155/55/24/017
More publications can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paola_Coan
