Research by Yang Lei, PhD, has been selected for presentation during the Science Council Session of the annual AAPM meeting.
Research by Winship medical physics resident Yang Lei, PhD, has been selected for presentation during the Science Council Session of the annual American Association of Physicists in Medicine meeting, held July 10-14 in Washington, D.C. The Science Council Session recognizes the top 0.5% of abstracts each year.
This honor is given to researchers with outstanding scientific abstracts on topics identified by The Science Council as being at the frontier of medical physics. Lei, PGY1 resident in the Emory Department of Radiation Oncology, is being recognized for his abstract, "Deep Learning-Based Echocardiographic Image Segmentation for Ultrasound-Guided Cardiac Intervention," which he completed while he was a post-doctoral student with his research mentor, Xiaofeng Yang, PhD, DABR, associate professor in the Emory Department of Radiation Oncology. Lei has had two previous abstracts selected by the AAPM Scientific Council: a study titled, "Patient Specific Deep Learning-Based Self-High-Resolution for MR Imaging," in 2021 and a study titled, "Chest Multiorgan Segmentation of CT Images with U-Net-GAN," in 2019. The Science Council Session is being held on Tuesday, July 12 from 1:45 to 3:45 p.m. in Ballroom B.
Research from Yang's lab has been selected by the AAPM Scientific Council seven times in the past ten years. It is extraordinary that Yang's lab and Lei himself have been recognized so frequently.
"Our Deep Biomedical Imaging Laboratory focuses on developing novel AI-aided analytical and computational tools to enhance the role of quantitative imaging in cancer treatment and to improve the accuracy and precision of radiation therapy," says Yang. "Having researchers from our lab recognized seven times by the AAPM Scientific Council further motivates us to improve radiation therapy for our patients."
Lei's research was made possible with assistance from his clinical mentor and lead clinical physicist in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Justin Roper, PhD, DABR.
"This international recognition highlights Yang's and Lei's outstanding scientific contributions and reflects a strong commitment to the Winship mission to lessen the burden of cancer for the citizens of Georgia by aligning Winship's outstanding cancer research and education initiatives with its significant cancer prevention and cancer care efforts," says Roper. "I am especially proud that my colleagues are actively pursuing avenues to translate this research into the clinic so that our physicians will be among the first with access to these tools to better care for Emory patients."
Lei says, "I am grateful to all my mentors and directors for seeing potential in me and providing opportunities to develop my future medical physicist career. I am also thankful for my co-authors for their contributions, time and continued support."
Along with Lei and Yang, many other Winship faculty members and trainees from the Emory Department of Radiation Oncology will present abstracts during the annual AAPM meeting.
On Sunday, Winship experts will participate as moderators and speakers during a variety of oral sessions. Richard Castillo, PhD, DABR, Winship medical physics expert, will moderate a Multi-Disciplinary SNAP Oral session titled, "Functional, Biologic and Anatomic IGRT." PGY1 medical physics residents Lei and Qian Wang, PhD, will present studies on "Ultrasound-Based Motion Tracking Using Hybrid Learning Network" and "Multi-Domain Constraint Based Estimation of Effective Atomic Number and Electron Density for Dual Energy CT," respectively. Shadab Momin, PhD, PGY2 medical physics resident, will present his study, "Cardiac Substructures Specific Knowledge-Based Treatment Planning for Lung Radiotherapy," during a Therapy SNAP Oral Session. ePosters from a number of Winship faculty and trainees will be available for viewing at 12:30 to 5:00 p.m.
On Monday, Castillo will moderate and present during a professional symposium on "Advancing EDI at Every Level of Med Phys Part 1: For Trainees, the Workplace and Beyond."
In addition to oral and poster sessions, Winship researchers will give over a dozen presentations during scientific sessions, educational courses and ePoster discussion sessions during the annual meeting.