Breakfast & Science Seminar 55
Hosted by Cristina Cudalbu, Head of CIBM PCI EPFL Section, we are pleased to invite you to attend the 55th CIBM Breakfast & Science Seminar on February 24th at 09:30 CET by Omar Zenteno Postdoctoral researcher at the
CIBM PCI EPFL Section who will be sharing on “Multimodal Approaches to Preclinical Abdominal Imaging: PET/MRI Integration and Dixon-Based Fat–Water Separation”.
Date and time: Tuesday, February 24th, 2026 – 9:30 to 11:00 CET
Location: CIVM Seminar room, EPFL, Lausanne & online
Program
09:30 – 10:30 Multimodal Approaches to Preclinical Abdominal Imaging: PET/MRI Integration and Dixon-Based Fat–Water Separation
10:30 – 11:00 CIBM news and networking
Abstract
Preclinical multimodal abdominal imaging enables longitudinal characterization of tissue composition and metabolic activity, but its quantitative exploitation requires robust integration of complementary contrasts. The recent implementation of a PET insert within the 9.4 T preclinical MRI system at the CIBM facilities provides a unified platform for combined metabolic and anatomical imaging.
Within this framework, Dixon MRI has been deployed for fat–water separation, enabling automated segmentation and quantitative longitudinal assessment of subcutaneous implants through changes in water content and fat infiltration. In parallel, the PET pipeline is being established to enable quantitative metabolic imaging, including the extraction of image-derived input functions and characterization of tracer dynamics.
Together, these developments establish the foundation for integrated PET/MRI analysis, with future applications toward combined assessment of implant evolution and multimodal correlation with spectroscopy MRI.
Omar Zenteno
About the Speaker
Omar Zenteno, PhD, is a scientist specializing in multimodal medical image processing. His work focuses on developing techniques for image registration, segmentation, and quantitative analysis for both preclinical and clinical applications.
Dr. Zenteno earned his doctorate from the Université d’Orléans (France) through the ANR-EMMIE project, where he implemented registration and mosaicking techniques over white light and hyperspectral images, enabling the analysis of gastric mucosa abnormalities by identifying spectral patterns that reveal tissue composition and health. After completing his doctorate, Dr. Zenteno joined the Paris Cardiovascular Research Center (PARCC), where he led the translational phase of the PETRUS project, which integrated PET/CT and ultrasound for simultaneous metabolic and cardiovascular analysis, specifically applied to the study of carotid plaques. His work on this prototype resulted in a patent application and approval for the first human clinical trials.
Currently, Dr. Zenteno is at the CIBM Center for Biomedical Imaging at EPFL, supported by an Innosuisse grant with Volumina Medical under the supervision of Bernard Lanz. His work focuses on the design and instrumentation of multimodal MRI/PET sequences in animal imaging to monitor soft tissue reconstruction processes, with the goal of characterizing biomaterials for applications in regenerative medicine.
Seminar Chair
JOIN US ON SITE!
You are welcome to join us on site at the CIBM seminar room, EPFL, Lausanne .
The event is for free and registration is not required.
OR REMOTELY
To join us remotely please, register at the following Zoom link:
https://epfl.zoom.us/meeting/register/d5a9vjlLTUikwYFrjs6R6Q
Zoom Code: 663 2688 5046
We look forward to seeing you there!
