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

Teh I, Romero W, Boyle J, et al.Teh I, Romero W, Boyle J, Coll-Font J, Dall'Armellina E, Ennis DB, Ferreira PF, Kalra P, Kolipaka A, Kozerke S, Lohr D, Mongeon F-P, Moulin K, Nguyen C, Nielles-Vallespin S, Raterman B, Schreiber LM, Scott AD, Sosnovik DE, Stoeck CT, Tous C, Tunnicliffe EM, Weng AM, Croisille P, Viallon M, Schneider JE close, 2022, Validation of cardiac diffusion tensor imaging sequences: A multi-centre test-retest phantom study, Nmr in Biomedicine, Vol:35, ISSN:0952-3480, Pages:1-18

Ferreira PF, Banerjee A, Scott AD, et al.Ferreira PF, Banerjee A, Scott AD, Khalique Z, Yang G, Rajakulasingam R, Dwornik M, De Silva R, Pennell DJ, Firmin DN, Nielles-Vallespin S close, 2022, Accelerating Cardiac Diffusion Tensor Imaging With a U-Net Based Model: Toward Single Breath-Hold, Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Vol:56, ISSN:1053-1807, Pages:1691-1704

Auger DA, Ghadimi S, Cai X, et al.Auger DA, Ghadimi S, Cai X, Reagan CE, Sun C, Abdi M, Cao JJ, Cheng JY, Ngai N, Scott AD, Ferreira PF, Oshinski JN, Emamifar N, Ennis DB, Loecher M, Liu Z-Q, Croisille P, Viallon M, Bilchick KC, Epstein FH close, 2022, Reproducibility of global and segmental myocardial strain using cine DENSE at 3 T: a multicenter cardiovascular magnetic resonance study in healthy subjects and patients with heart disease, Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, Vol:24, ISSN:1097-6647, Pages:23-23

Dwornik M, Khalique Z, Rajakulasingam R, et al.Dwornik M, Khalique Z, Rajakulasingam R, Scott A, Azzu A, Ferreira PF, Nielles-Vallespin S, Pennell DJ close, 2022, Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance in Cardiomyopathy, International Journal of Cardiodiabetes

Scott A, Jackson T, Khalique Z, et al.Scott A, Jackson T, Khalique Z, Gorodezky M, Pardoe B, Begum L, Bruno VD, Chowdhury R, Ferreira P, Nielles-Vallespin S, Roehl M, McCarthy K, Sarathchandra P, Rose J, Doorly D, Pennell D, Ascione R, De Silva PER, Firmin D close, 2022, Development of a CMR compatible large animal isolated heart model for direct comparison of beating and arrested hearts, Nmr in Biomedicine, Vol:35, ISSN:0952-3480

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