Summary
I am a Senior Physicist based at the Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance unit, Royal Brompton Hospital. I have a background in Physics and Mathematics, a PhD in MRI Physics (Imperial College :: London), and an extensive experience in MRI research.
Since 2012, I have been working closely with a team of physicists and clinicians in diffusion tensor cardiovascular magnetic resonance (DT-CMR). It is a novel technique for the investigation of the 3-dimensional microstructure of the heart in-vivo. We aim to improve the understanding of how the healthy heart functions as well as how microstructural dysfunction contributes to disease.
I am focused on creating specialised tools to perform data analysis, image processing, and data visualisation, with a recent interest in finding solutions with AI.
Highlights
We developed and validated a fully automated postprocessing framework for in vivo diffusion tensor cardiac magnetic resonance (DT-CMR) data powered by deep learning semantic segmentation (TensorFlow):
We published in vivo studies showing that secondary directions of diffusion align with the laminar organisation of cardiomyocytes in the heart, and that cardiomyopathy hearts present impaired mobility:
- Ferreira, P. F., Kilner, P. J., McGill, L.A., et al. In vivo cardiovascular magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging shows evidence of abnormal myocardial laminar orientations and mobility in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson (2014): 87. 2015 winner of the SCMR Gerald Pohost best manuscript award.
- Nielles-Vallespin, S., Khalique, Z., Ferreira, P. F., et al. Assessment of Myocardial Microstructural Dynamics by In Vivo Diffusion Tensor Cardiac Magnetic Resonance. J Am Coll Cardiol (2017): 661-676. 2017. Orloff Science Award (NIH, Bethesda MD, USA)
Previous academic education:
- 2005 - 2009: PhD in Myocardial Perfusion Imaging with MR, Imperial College, London, UK.
- 2004 - 2005: MSc in Medical Engineering and Physics, King’s College, University of London, UK.
- 1998 - 2004: First Degree in Physics / Applied Mathematics (Astrophysics), Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal.
Publications
Journals
Ferreira PF, Martin RR, Scott AD, et al. , 2020, Automating in vivo cardiac diffusion tensor postprocessing with deep learning-based segmentation, Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Vol:84, ISSN:0740-3194, Pages:2801-2814
Le B, Ferreira P, Merchant S, et al. , 2020, Microarchitecture of the hearts in term andformer-pretermlambs using diffusion tensor imaging, Anatomical Record-advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology, ISSN:1932-8486
Nielles-Vallespin S, Scott A, Ferreira P, et al. , 2020, Cardiac Diffusion: Technique and Practical Applications, Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Vol:52, ISSN:1053-1807, Pages:348-368
Khalique Z, Ferreira P, Scott A, et al. , 2020, Diffusion tensor cardiovascular magnetic resonance: a clinical perspective, Jacc: Cardiovascular Imaging, Vol:13, ISSN:1936-878X, Pages:1235-1255
Khalique Z, Ferreira PF, Scott AD, et al. , 2020, Diffusion tensor cardiovascular magnetic resonance in cardiac amyloidosis, Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging, Vol:13, ISSN:1941-9651