Research

The research programme focuses on cardiovascular imaging. It expands on previous work in coronary artery disease and heart failure imaging, which included studies on pharmacological stress and radionuclide imaging of myocardial perfusion as well as studies on ventricular function and myocardial hibernation. Current activities include studies in anatomical and functional imaging of coronary artery disease exploring the value of novel indices for assessing disease severity. A further direction of the programme is work on cardiovascular inflammation and response assessment to novel treatment strategies.  Research is complemented by quantification analysis and testing of different image reconstruction algorithms, and at a pre-clinical level, by studies using mainly microPET/CT. The emphasis is in a) atherosclerosis imaging on mouse models aiming to test novel treatment strategies, b) assessment of metabolic remodeling in cardiomyopathies via absolute quantification of FDG utilization by the myocardium c) study of calcific aortic stenosis in rabbit models of human disease. Since the preclinical imaging unit supports the design and implementation of translational research studies in other fields too, current activities include development, validation and optimization of a range of imaging protocols to be used for studying different pathological entities such as cancer, inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases.  This multi-direction imaging program is a core component of the INFRAFRONTIER-GR.