Report on ‘The Translational Brain Imaging Training Network (TRABIT)’ 2021

CIBM researchers and students held a virtual conference, ‘The Translational Brain Imaging Training Network (TRABIT)’ from September 7 to 10, with leading keynote speakers and round table discussions, to mark the nearing end of the project.

TRABIT is an EU-funded consortium focused on developing new computational methods to analyse the ‘wild’ type of imaging data arising in the standard clinical treatment of brain disorders.

A wide community of researchers responded to the event with participation of up to 70 people who actively participated. Expert speakers featured in sessions centered around the four scientific work packages of TRABIT.

BRAIN TUMORS

Dr. Gabriel Girard, Research Staff Scientist, CIBM SP CHUV-EPFL Section & Postdoctoral researcher Department of Radiology, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) participated as panelist at the Brain Tumors session, with Dr. Ron Kikinis, Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Christos Davatzikos, University of Pennsylvania.

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

Dr. Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Head of CIBM SP CHUV-UNIL Section and Medical Image Analysis Lab, CHUV-UNIL hosted the Multiple Sclerosis session, with Dr. Daniel Reich, National Institutes of Health, and participated as panelist in the round table discussion afterwards.

NEUROVASCULAR DISEASES

Prof. Jean-Philippe Thiran, Director of LTS5, EPFL and Head of the CIBM SP CHUV-EPFL Section hosted the session on Neurovascular Diseases, with Prof. Jan Kirschke, Technical University of Munich.

FETAL BRAIN DISORDERS

A session was also organised on the fourth work package, Fetal brain disorders, with Dr. Ellen Grant, Children’s Hospital Boston.

Meritxell Bach Cuadra, said of the event:

“Despite the fact that machine learning tools are more and more integrated in daily practice this is not yet set in a global standardized way, but rather incrementally. Most of the time, too much new information provided to medical doctors is difficult to process. The event aimed at disseminating the different research projects / Ph.D theses of these 15 students, and the event itself was part of their training as they were involved in the organisation on all fronts: program, technical aspects, communication and the social event. They successfully organised a hybrid event due to COVID, I am very proud of them.”

The organising committee consisted of PhD students Luca Canalini, Stefano Cerri, Ezequiel de la Rosa, Ivan Ezhov, Lucas Fidon, Daniel Krahulec, Francesco La Rosa, Amnah Mahroo, Ines Meyer, Sveinn Pálsson, Suprosanna Shit, Athena Taymourtash, Thomas Yu and Andrey Zhylka, together with their mentors Georg Langs, Meritxell Bach Cuadra, Tim Dyrby, Christel Wagner and Koen Van Leemput, who guided the process and specific tasks.

A series of video presentations were produced by the PhD Students as part of the TRABIT program, featuring CIBM’s Francesco La Rosa and Thomas Yu, jointly supervised by Meritxell Bach Cuadra and Jean Philippe Thiran.

Francesco La Rosa