DrPedroFerreira

Faculty of Medicine, National Heart & Lung Institute

Contact

Location

Sydney StreetRoyal Brompton Campus

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.

Left ventricle tractography

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):

Ferreira PF, Martin RR, Scott AD, Khalique Z, Yang G, Nielles-Vallespin S, Pennell DJ, Firmin DN. Automating in vivo cardiac diffusion tensor postprocessing with deep learning-based segmentation. Magn Reson Med. 2020.

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.Ferreira PF, Martin RR, Scott AD, Khalique Z, Yang G, Nielles-Vallespin S, Pennell DJ, Firmin DN close, 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.Le B, Ferreira P, Merchant S, Zheng G, Sutherland MR, Dahl MJ, Albertine KH, Black MJ close, 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.Nielles-Vallespin S, Scott A, Ferreira P, Khalique Z, Pennell D, Firmin D close, 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.Khalique Z, Ferreira P, Scott A, Nielles-Vallespin S, Firmin D, Pennell D close, 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.Khalique Z, Ferreira PF, Scott AD, Nielles-Vallespin S, Martinez-Naharro A, Fontana M, Hawkins P, Firmin DN, Pennell DJ close, 2020, Diffusion tensor cardiovascular magnetic resonance in cardiac amyloidosis, Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging, Vol:13, ISSN:1941-9651

More Publications