Vasilis Ntziachristos is a Greek American biomedical engineer, scientist, and inventor best known for his development of fundamental and translational research tools for imaging tissues based on fluorescence and optoacoustics.

Biography

Vasilis Ntziachristos is a Full Professor C4/W3 of Medicine and Electrical Engineering and holds the Chair of Biological Imaging at the Technical University of Munich. He is also the Director of the Institute of Biological and Medical Imaging at the Helmholtz Zentrum München and Director of Bioengineering at the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus.[1] He is a founding member and board member of the translational oncology center TranslaTUM and has led developments leading to the foundation of the Munich School of Bioengineering, where he currently serves as the Speaker of the Study Program.[2]

Ntziachristos studied electrical engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, magnetic resonance as a Research Fellow at the Panum NMR Core Facility of the University of Copenhagen and at the Department of Radiology at Penn Medicine. He matriculated at the graduate program of the bioengineering department of the University of Pennsylvania where he completed a master's degree and a Ph.D. in bioengineering. His doctoral work, entitled "Concurrent magnetic resonance imaging and diffuse optical tomography to probe breast cancer", was carried out under the supervision of Britton Chance, Arjun Yodh and Mitchell Schnall.[3] Following graduation Ntziachristos joined the faculty ranks of Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, initially as an instructor (2000) and then as an Assistant Professor (2002) and Director of the Laboratory of Bio-optics and Molecular Imaging. In 2007, he was recruited to Munich into a joint call from the Technical University of Munich and Helmholtz Zentrum München.[4][5]

In 2013, he founded the open-access research journal Photoacoustics, which is the only peer-reviewed journal dedicated entirely to photoacoustic (optoacoustic) research. He currently serves as an editor of Chief of the journal. The journal is served by a Board of highly prominent researchers in the field.[6]

For his work he has been awarded several prestigious awards, including the 2013 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize from the German Research Foundation, considered to be the top scientific distinction in Germany and the 2015 Gold Medal of the World Molecular Imaging Society. For more information on his awards see the section on Prizes and Awards. His work often appears in the press.[7] [8] [9] The 2018 anniversary report of the Technical University of Munich features a chapter on Vasilis Ntziachristos, naming him as one of three examples of professors that shape the future of the Technical University of Munich.[10]

Research

Ntziachristos is a globally recognized pioneer and entrepreneur in biomedical imaging. One of his focus areas is developing technology for fluorescence-guided surgical procedures for improving the accuracy of tumor removal. He and his collaborators published the first translational study in which a targeted fluorescent agent was systemically injected to distinguish tumor cells from healthy tissue during surgery. This approach is now being validated in several clinical trials . In 2012 Ntziachristos was a founding member of SurgVision, a company that has since commercialized technology from this research. SurgVision was recently acquired by Bracco Imaging S.p.A.[11]

Recently, Ntziachristos and colleagues have demonstrated early detection of esophageal cancer, significantly improving detection over white light endoscopy. Successful application of this performance may mean life-saving curative procedures for tens of thousands of individuals each year and healthcare savings of several billion EUR per year.[12][13]

Another focus of Ntziachristos' research is developing optoacoustic techniques for breaking thought the penetration barriers of conventional optical imaging methods. His group develops hardware, image reconstruction, spectral unmixing and information processing techniques as well as applications in biology and medicine. Among many other inventions, he is the inventor of multispectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT) and raster scan optoacoustic mesoscopy (RSOM), which are non-invasive imaging methods that simultaneously measure different parameters of tissue physiology and pathology non-invasively, allowing new ways to diagnose disease and monitor treatment. MSOT and RSOM are now used in a range of preclinical and clinical studies, including advancing characterization of psoriasis,[14] breast tumors,[15] metastatic melanoma[16] and inflammation in Crohn's disease.[17] MSOT has also been used to visualize metabolism within brown fat,[18] suggesting it may be effective for analyzing muscle energetics and lipid metabolism in a much simpler and more accessible way than with other techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging. Ntziachristos is a founder of iThera Medical GmbH, which currently commercializes optoacoustic technology and has placed systems around the world.[19]

Prizes and awards (selection)

References

  1. ↑ "The Greek who makes cancer tissues glow". Ellines. Retrieved November 25, 2018.
  2. ↑ "Vasilis Ntziachristos – Biological imaging". Translatum.tum.de. Retrieved November 25, 2018.
  3. ↑
  4. ↑ "Chair for Biological Imaging: Home". www.cbi.ei.tum.de. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  5. ↑ "IBMI". Helmholtz-muenchen.de. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  6. ↑ "Photoacoustics Journal". journals.elsevier.com. Retrieved 19 December 2018.
  7. ↑ "Der Spezialist für Bilder". Sueddeutsche.de. 7 November 2017. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  8. ↑ Online, FOCUS. "Für Alzheimerforschung: Neue Methode soll tief gehende Diagnosen ermöglichen". Focus.de. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  9. ↑ "Βασίλης Ντζιαχρήστος: Ο ελληνας που κέρδισε το "γερμανικό Νόμπελ", της Αννας Γριμάνη - Kathimerini". Kathimerini.gr. 10 March 2014. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  10. ↑ Brigitte Röthlein, Pioneers shape the world of technology - 150 years of research at the Technical University of Munich, Publisher: Wolfgang A. Herrmann, ISBN 978-3-95884-003-4
  11. ↑ "Bracco Imaging acquires SurgVision expanding into the innovative field of fluorescence imaging-guided surgery" (Press release).
  12. ↑ Nagengast, Wouter B.; Hartmans, Elmire; Garcia-Allende, Pilar B.; Peters, Frans T M.; Linssen, Matthijs D.; Koch, Maximilian; Koller, Marjory; Tjalma, Jolien J J.; Karrenbeld, Arend; Jorritsma-Smit, Annelies; Kleibeuker, Jan H.; Van Dam, Gooitzen M.; Ntziachristos, Vasilis (2017). "Near-infrared fluorescence molecular endoscopy detects dysplastic oesophageal lesions using topical and systemic tracer of vascular endothelial growth factor A". Gut. 68 (1): gutjnl-2017-314953. doi:10.1136/gutjnl-2017-314953. PMC 6839834. PMID 29247063.
  13. ↑ "ESOTRAC". Esotrac2020.eu. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  14. ↑ Aguirre, Juan; Schwarz, Mathias; Garzorz, Natalie; Omar, Murad; Buehler, Andreas; Eyerich, Kilian; Ntziachristos, Vasilis (2017). "Precision assessment of label-free psoriasis biomarkers with ultra-broadband optoacoustic mesoscopy". Nature Biomedical Engineering. 1 (5): 0068. doi:10.1038/s41551-017-0068. S2CID 88356171.
  15. ↑ Diot, Gael; Metz, Stephan; Noske, Aurelia; Liapis, Evangelos; Schroeder, Barbara; Ovsepian, Saak V.; Meier, Reinhard; Rummeny, Ernst; Ntziachristos, Vasilis (2017). "Multispectral Optoacoustic Tomography (MSOT) of Human Breast Cancer". Clinical Cancer Research. 23 (22): 6912–6922. doi:10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-16-3200. PMID 28899968.
  16. ↑ Stoffels, Ingo; Morscher, Stefan; Helfrich, Iris; Hillen, Uwe; Leyh, Julia; Burton, Neal C.; Sardella, Thomas C. P.; Claussen, Jing; Poeppel, Thorsten D.; Bachmann, Hagen S.; Roesch, Alexander; Griewank, Klaus; Schadendorf, Dirk; Gunzer, Matthias; Klode, Joachim (2015). "Metastatic status of sentinel lymph nodes in melanoma determined noninvasively with multispectral optoacoustic imaging". Science Translational Medicine. 7 (317): 317ra199. doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.aad1278. PMID 26659573. S2CID 19501731.
  17. ↑ Knieling, Ferdinand; Neufert, Clemens; Hartmann, Arndt; Claussen, Jing; Urich, Alexander; Egger, Cornelia; Vetter, Marcel; Fischer, Sarah; Pfeifer, Lukas; Hagel, Alexander; Kielisch, Christian; Görtz, Rüdiger S.; Wildner, Dane; Engel, Matthias; Röther, Jens; Uter, Wolfgang; Siebler, Jürgen; Atreya, Raja; Rascher, Wolfgang; Strobel, Deike; Neurath, Markus F.; Waldner, Maximilian J. (2017). "Multispectral Optoacoustic Tomography for Assessment of Crohn's Disease Activity". New England Journal of Medicine. 376 (13): 1292–1294. doi:10.1056/NEJMc1612455. PMID 28355498.
  18. ↑ Reber, Josefine; Willershäuser, Monja; Karlas, Angelos; Paul-Yuan, Korbinian; Diot, Gael; Franz, Daniela; Fromme, Tobias; Ovsepian, Saak V.; Bézière, Nicolas; Dubikovskaya, Elena; Karampinos, Dimitrios C.; Holzapfel, Christina; Hauner, Hans; Klingenspor, Martin; Ntziachristos, Vasilis (2018). "Non-invasive Measurement of Brown Fat Metabolism Based on Optoacoustic Imaging of Hemoglobin Gradients". Cell Metabolism. 27 (3): 689–701.e4. doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2018.02.002. PMID 29514074.
  19. ↑ "Optoacoustic Imaging - an Imaging Revolution". iThera Medical. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  20. ↑ Review, MIT Technology. "Innovator Under 35: Vasilis Ntziachristos, 34". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  21. ↑ "ERC Advanced Grant 2008" (PDF). Erc.europa.eu. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  22. ↑ "Licht aus dem Körper hören - die nächste Generation der Bildgebung - GO-Bio". Go-bio.de. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  23. ↑ "Erwin-Schrödinger-Preis". Helmholtz.de. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  24. ↑ "DFG - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft - 404 Seite nicht gefunden". Dfg.de. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  25. ↑ "Deutscher Innovationspreis für die iThera Medical GmbH – Helmholtz Zentrum München". Helmholtz-muenchen.de. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  26. ↑ "WMIC 2015 Highlights: Precision Medicine… Visualized". Wmis.org. 17 September 2015. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  27. ↑ "ERC Advanced Grants 2015 List of principal investigators" (PDF). Erc.europa.eu. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  28. ↑ "Chaires Blaise Pascal". Chaires-blaise-pascal.ens.fr. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  29. ↑ "About the IEEE Fellow Program". www.ieee.org. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
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