DrPedroFerreira

Faculty of Medicine, National Heart & Lung Institute

Honorary Research Fellow

Contact

p.f.ferreira05

Location

Sydney StreetRoyal Brompton Campus

Summary

I am a Senior Image Processing and Data Scientist 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

Alemany I, Rose JN, Ferreira PF, et al.Alemany I, Rose JN, Ferreira PF, Pennell DJ, Nielles-Vallespin S, Scott AD, Doorly DJ close, 2023, Realistic numerical simulations of diffusion tensor cardiovascular magnetic resonance: The effects of perfusion and membrane permeability., Magn Reson Med, Vol:90, Pages:1641-1656

Zheng Y, Chan WX, Nielles-Vallespin S, et al.Zheng Y, Chan WX, Nielles-Vallespin S, Scott AD, Ferreira PF, Leo HL, Yap CH close, 2023, Effects of myocardial sheetlet sliding on left ventricular function., Biomech Model Mechanobiol, Vol:22, Pages:1313-1332

Wang Y, Sun C, Ghadimi S, et al.Wang Y, Sun C, Ghadimi S, Auger DC, Croisille P, Viallon M, Mangion K, Berry C, Haggerty CM, Jing L, Fornwalt BK, Cao JJ, Cheng J, Scott AD, Ferreira PF, Oshinski JN, Ennis DB, Bilchick KC, Epstein FH close, 2023, StrainNet: Improved Myocardial Strain Analysis of Cine MRI by Deep Learning from DENSE., Radiol Cardiothorac Imaging, Vol:5

Moulin K, Stoeck CT, Axel L, et al.Moulin K, Stoeck CT, Axel L, Broncano J, Croisille P, Dall'Armellina E, Ennis DB, Ferreira PF, Gotschy A, Miro S, Schneider JE, Scott AD, Sosnovik DE, Teh I, Tous C, Tunnicliffe EM, Viallon M, Nguyen C close, 2023, In Vivo Cardiac Diffusion Imaging Without Motion-Compensation Leads to Unreasonably High Diffusivity., J Magn Reson Imaging

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