CANCELLED - Free-Breathing Quantitative Body MRI to Study Metabolic Health

The rising prevalence of obesity and metabolic dysfunction pose critical health challenges worldwide. In particular, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is the most common chronic liver disease and a leading indication for liver transplant. The severe form of MASLD, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), can progress to fibrosis, cirrhosis, liver failure, and cancer. Magnetic resonance imaging and elastography (MRI and MRE) are powerful non-invasive technologies for assessing risk factors and disease status in MASLD/MASH. MRI quantifies adipose tissue and hepatic fat, and MRE quantifies hepatic stiffness changes related to fibrosis. However, conventional MRI/MRE technology requires breath-holding to limit artifacts and errors caused by motion; breath-holding may be difficult or infeasible in young, elderly, and chronically ill subjects. This talk will present new technologies developed by Dr. Wu's research team for free-breathing quantitative MRI and MRE, including non-Cartesian acquisition, self-navigated motion compensation, constrained and deep learning-based reconstruction, and deep learning-based image processing methods. These new MRI technologies enable robust free-breathing quantification of abdominal adipose tissue, hepatic fat, and hepatic stiffness to study metabolic health in at-risk populations, including young subjects and adults.

Dr. Wu is a Professor in the Departments of Radiological Sciences and Bioengineering at UCLA. His lab’s research focuses on the development and translation of quantitative MRI and MRI-guided interventions for cancer and metabolic diseases. Specific areas of interest include quantitative MRI in prostate cancer, free-breathing quantitative MRI and MRE in adult and pediatric liver diseases, MRI-guided targeted biopsy and focal ablation, artificial intelligence and robotic systems for real-time MRI-guided interventions, and MRI-guided nano-theranostics. Prior to joining UCLA, Dr. Wu completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University in 2009 and postdoctoral training at Stanford University Medical Center in 2012. His group’s research is supported by close collaborations with multiple departments at UCLA and funded by institutional programs, industry partners, and the NIH.