Iwan Paolucci
Assistant Professor
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center at Houston
Department of Interventional Radiology
My main areas of research include artificial intelligence and stereotactic and robotic image-guidance for treatment of hepatobiliary malignancies with a strong focus on thermal ablation of primary and secondary malignant liver tumors. Using artificial intelligence enabled the field over the past years to perform advanced image processing intra-procedurally and allow for advanced 3-dimensional planning and immediate re-treatment if necessary. In my research I’m continuing to develop and evaluate algorithms for various aspects of the procedure from patient selection to planning all the way to post-procedure follow-up assessment. With stereotactic guidance and robotics, I aim to improve the procedural accuracy and standardization to make the procedure less dependent on the operator and ultimately lower the between operator and institution variation in outcomes. Additionally, I investigate artificial intelligence-based methods for outcome prediction and treatment recommendation of liver tumors treated with a wide range of treatments.
Potential projects: Students who do a tutorial or a doctorate in my lab will have the opportunity to apply a wide range of techniques to solve critical clinical problems. These can include AI-based techniques for image processing or generation, predictive modelling, radiomics, and medical robotics. They will gain knowledge in interpreting and processing medical images (mainly CT) – both manually and using AI-based techniques. They will use their programming skills to develop novel algorithms and automate image processing pipelines. Statistics and data science techniques will be used to leverage our large datasets to identify optimal treatment endpoints and test new algorithms.
Education & Training
PhD, University of Bern, 2020