CIBM | Center for Biomedical Imaging

CIBM MRI EPFL Animal Imaging and Technology Section

Thanh Phong Lê is a physicist who joined the CIBM MRI EPFL section as an R&D Engineer in 2024. His expertise and research interests focus on advancing MR hardware, RF coils, as well as developing innovative acquisition and computational methods to push the boundaries of state-of-the-art MRI and MRSI.

Thanh Phong Lê earned his BSc and MSc in Physics from EPFL, specializing in solid-state, biological, and computational physics. For his Master’s project in 2017, under the supervision of Dr. Joao Jorge and Dr. Ozlem Ipek, he explored solutions to mitigate RF artefacts caused by EEG wiring during simultaneous EEG-fMRI. He carried out his doctoral training between HES-SO Genève and EPFL under the guidance of Prof. Jean-Noël Hyacinthe and Prof. Rolf Gruetter. In his PhD thesis, completed in 2023, he developed a theranostic approach to ischaemic stroke based on hyperpolarized (HP) neuroprotective agents via dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP). He notably highlighted the aptitude of HP lactate and pyruvate as molecular biomarkers for stroke in the preclinical setting, modelled their metabolism, and strengthened their applicability by optimizing technical and methodological aspects of both DNP and MR. Following his PhD, he stayed as a postdoctoral researcher in the Laboratory for Functional and Metabolic Imaging at EPFL to pursue his research on HP metabolic imaging, as well as on DNP physics and hardware, before joining the CIBM in 2024.