About the Principal Investigator (PI): Mohammed Elbaz, PhD
Mohammed S.M. Elbaz, PhD
Assistant Professor of Radiology & Biomedical Engineering (Tenure-Track)
Director of the Personalized & Integrative Computational Cardiovascular Imaging (PIC-CVI) Lab
Northwestern University
Department of Radiology
Feinberg School of Medicine
737 N. Michigan Avenue Suite 1600, Chicago Illinois 60611
I am an Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track) at Northwestern University, where I lead the Computational Cardiovascular Imaging Lab (PIC-CVI Lab). With over 15 years of experience in MRI and quantitative imaging for cardiovascular diseases, my career spans global institutions, including a PhD from Leiden University (Netherlands) and postdoctoral training at Northwestern University (USA) and the University of Calgary (Canada).
I have authored over 100 publications in prestigious journals and conferences, including Radiology, MRM, JMRI, JCMR, Medical Image Analysis, IEEE TBME, EHJ-CVI, MICCAI, ISMRM, and SCMR, among others. My work has earned 30+ awards, including several ISMRM Summa Cum Laude and Magna Cum Laude honors and Best Presentation accolades, and SCMR Early Career Award Finalist, among others. I am a Fellow of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) and have secured multiple NIH and AHA grants. Notably, I am the Principal Investigator of a $3.2M NIH R01 grant supporting the development and validation of our lab’s innovative 4D MRI virtual catheter (vCath) technology for noninvasive, quantitative diagnosis and prognosis of pulmonary hypertension. This project represents one of the first longitudinal multi-center 4D Flow MRI studies.
I serve on several SCMR committees, the WSPH guidelines task force for emerging imaging in pulmonary hypertension, and as an Associate Editor for the BMES Journal of Cardiovascular Engineering and Technology.
My research focuses on leveraging the high-dimensionality of MRI to develop novel quantitative techniques. Recent highlights include methods to quantify 7D velocity-encoded time-resolved 3D Flow MRI (4D Flow MRI velocity vector fields; see our work in Medical Image Analysis Paper) and self-calibration techniques that convert non-quantitative MRI into calibrated quantitative data without additional scans while auto-calibrating for data uncertainties for structural abnormality quantification (e.g., our recent IEEE TBME paper). These rigorously validated techniques demonstrate exceptional reproducibility, achieving an order-of-magnitude improvement in robustness to resolution, noise, and artifacts. Our methods have been applied to hundreds of patients across diverse conditions, including pulmonary hypertension, atrial fibrillation, heart failure, myocardial infarction, mitral regurgitation, and stroke
EDUCATION:
2018 Postdoctoral Research Associate, Radiology Department, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA
2017 Postdoctoral scholar, Computer Science Department, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
2016 Diploma (as part of PhD studies) from the Advanced School for Computing and Imaging (ASCI), Delft, the Netherlands
2016 PhD in Biomedical Imaging, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands
PUBLICATIONS:
Check the Publications Page Or ORCID Google Scholar Pubmed
PATENTS
- Patent-pending (Apllication# 63/743,570): Mohammed S.M. Elbaz. “MULTIPLEXED CONTRAST MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING”
- Issued: application# 62/892,234: Mohammed S.M. Elbaz et. al.“Co-Expression Signatures Method for Quantification of Physiological and Structural Data”.
- Pending WO patent (application # 63/501,955): Mohammed S.M. Elbaz. “Systems And Methods For Generating Tissue Damage Signatures From Medical Images For Simultaneously Assessing Tissue Damage Extent And Distribution”
- Patent-pending: application# 62/760,011: Mohammed S.M. Elbaz et. al. “Noninvasive Quantitative Flow Mapping Using a Virtual Catheter Volume”.
GRANTS
Check the Funding Page for the Current and finished awarded grants
Selected HONORS & AWARDS
2024 MD student Siva Sreedhar receives RSNA Medical Student Award for my mentored project “MRI Evaluation of Atrioventricular Mechanical Coupling in Mitral Regurgitation”
2024 Students receive two Travel Awards from the ISMRM for my senior authored abstracts
2023 ISMRM abstract (senior-authored) selected as a highest-scored abstract and invited for an extended journal article by ISMRM Program Chairs (AMPC).
- Mehri Mehrnia, Mohammed Elbaz, “Novel LGE Myocardial Scar Burden Signatures: A Novel Concept for Comprehensive Scar Quantification in Myocardial Infarction”, the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) annual meeting, June 3-8, 2023, Toronto, Canada
2023 Two SCMR Travel Awards for PhD students Thara Nallamothu and Mehri Mehrnia for their accepted abstracts at the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) Annual Scientific Meeting, Jan 25-28, 2023, San Diego,CA, USA
2022 Four Awards @ ISMRM* 22, London, UK. For my senior authored abstracts, my two BME Ph.D. students, Mehri Mehrnia and Thara Nallamothu received four awards including Magna Cum Laude, 2 Travel Awards, and Best Flow & Motion Poster Finalist. * ISMRM is the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
2022 ISMRM Magna Cum Laude Award for my senior authored abstract “Stochastic Fibrosis Signatures from 3D LGE: Novel Threshold-Free quantification of left atrial fibrosis” . International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) 31st Annual Meeting. 7-12 May 2022, London, UK.
2022 American Heart Association (AHA) Student Scholarship Award for my MD student Siva Sreedhar for the project “Reproducible 3D Left Arial Strain Method from CMR”
2022 SCMR Early Career Award Finalist & Travel Award for my BME PhD Student, Thara Nallmaothu, for my senior authored abstract “Novel atrial 4D Flow Hemodynamic Signature Index (HSI) associates inversely with stroke volume and directly with LA size independent of age, gender and CHA₂DS₂-VASc score in atrial fibrillation patients.” Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) 25th annual meeting, February 2-5, 2022
2021 Three Awards @ ISMRM21: My BME PhD student Thara Nallamothu received three awards at the 2021 ISMRM conference including Magna Cum Laude, Best Trainee Abstract from the Cardiac Group, and Travel Awards for the abstract “Novel Stochastic 4D Flow Signatures of time-resolved 3D left atrial flow-field alterations in atrial fibrillation.”. International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), 15-20 May 2021
2019 Summa Cum Laude Merit Award from ISMRM 27th Conference, 11-16 May, Montreal, Canada for the abstract ” Stochastic Flow Co-expression Signatures: A novel concept for volumetric 4D flow assessment with application to aortic valve disease”. ISMRM is the international society for magnetic resonance in medicine.
2019 Best Research Presentation Award from the ISMRM Cardiac MR Study Group, ISMRM 27th Conference, 11-16 May, Montreal, Canada for the abstract ” Stochastic Flow Co-expression Signatures: A novel concept for volumetric 4D flow assessment with application to aortic valve disease”.
2019 Educational Stipend Award, ISMRM 27th Conference, 11-16 May, Montreal, Canada
2019 Early Career Award Finalist: in the SCMR 22nd Scientific meeting, Bellevue, USA
for the abstract titled: “4D Flow vCath: A novel virtual catheter technique for assessing hemodynamics in aortic valve disease”.
2019 Best of moderated e-posters in the SCMR 22nd Scientific meeting, Bellevue, USA
for abstract titled “Impact of pulmonary hypertension on viscous energy loss, kinetic energy and vorticity in the right heart: A pilot 4D Flow CMR study”.
2019 Travel Award from the Society of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) 22nd
Scientific meeting, Bellevue, USA
2019 Travel Stipend Award from the 27th annual conference of International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), 11-16 May 2019, Montreal, Canada
2018 Travel award from 71st annual meeting of the American Physical Society Division
of Fluid Dynamics, Atlanta, USA November 18-20, 2018
2018 Travel Award + 500$ Stipend from the 30th annual conference of the Society of Magnetic
Resonance Angiography (SMRA), Glasgow, Scotland
2018 Selected among only 8 PhD participants for the RSNA (Radiological Society of North America) ITARSc Program for junior scientists
2018 My senior-authored paper appeared as the cover of the International Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging (June issue).
2015 Magna Cum Laude Merit Award from ISMRM 23rd Conference, Ontario, Canada for the abstract “Contribution of early and late filling vortex rings to normal left ventricular flow”. ISMRM is the international society for magnetic resonance in medicine.
2012 Awarded Leiden university Fonds (LUF) conference travel grant 2012
2009 Two-year MSc. fellowship from Nile University, Egypt
2007 Honored by the Egyptian minister of higher education for being a good representative of Egypt in the I2P (Idea to Product) Global international competition 2006 held at Texas, Austin, USA.
2006 Won 3rd place while defeating Stanford University (4th place) in the I2P (Idea to Product) Global International Competition, held at Texas university at Austin, USA for the graduation project entitled “Kidney Early Rejection Detection after Renal Transplantation (KERD)”. (Only representative of Africa)
2006 1st place in I2P (Idea to Product) Egypt out of 74 projects from universities in the country (Engineering and Computer Science schools).
2006 Semi-finalist in the endeavor Egypt Business Plan competition for the project entitled “Kidney early rejection detection after renal transplantation”.