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Molecular simulations are indispensable methods in areas like material science, structural biology, and drug design. These methods address data-intensive and compute-intensive problems, which demand high-performance computing to allow data analysis in an acceptable time. The project MoSGrid (Molecular Simulation Grid) offers a workflow-enabled grid portal allowing access to molecular simulation tools on distributed resources in an intuitive manner. Users are able to exchange workflows and data via repositories and, thus, to exchange knowledge about the specific application domain.
Brain Images of Normal Subjects (BRAINS) bank and atlases are being developed with >1000 normal subjects from across the lifespan, to be expanded in the future to include subjects with disease. The images have been collected in centres across Scotland and are in a range of magnetic resonance (MR) sequences, including T1, T2, T2*, and fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR). When BRAINS is released these will be searchable by a wide range of metadata, e.g. blood pressure<140/90; age=85; MMSE>26.
Computer tomography (CT) perfusion imaging is widely used to calculate brain hemodynamic quantities such as Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF), Cerebral Blood Volume (CBV) and Mean Transit Time (MTT) that aid the diagnosis of acute stroke. Since perfusion source images contain more information than hemodynamic maps, good utilisation of the source images can lead to better understanding than the hemodynamic maps alone. Correlation-coefficient tests are used in our approach to measure the similarity between healthy tissue time-concentration curves and unknown curves.
There is increasing demand to develop a more personalised approach to diagnosis and treatment regimes for patients, such as those with cancer, so that treatment offered is based on the knowledge that it will be effective. The current “one size fits all” approach should not be applied to care and treatment when the tools that are now available can target the individual.
I am delighted to report that Fan Zhu's external examiners were pleased with his thesis and his spirited viva defense. They have recommended a pass with a few minor corrections. A big thank you to Professors Gary Green and Richard Baldock.
Title:
Brain Perfusion Imaging - Performance and Accuracy
Modern cell and developmental biology and the now-established domain of systems biology use quantitative imaging methods to measure the location, dynamics and interaction of molecules in fixed and living cells, and at increasingly high spatial and temporal resolution. Quantitative imaging depends on the development, delivery, and use of sophisticated image processing and analysis algorithms. The availability of these data analysis tools is commonly cited as a major bottleneck in scientific discovery.