Prof. Dr. ir. Peter Claes
Director Laboratory of Imaging Genetics
Electrical Engineering, processing of speech and images & Human Genetics, KU Leuven
Friday 27th November 2020 09.00 CET
Imaging in the Era of Big Data
Abstract: Imaging genetics uses anatomical or physiological imaging technologies as dense phenotypic assays to evaluate genomic variation. It is a new emerging computational research line, aimed to impact on applied disciplines such as clinical, archeological and forensic genetics, for the benefit of patients and the society. In the post-genomics era in combination with new imaging technologies, hardware exists for intensively collecting genotypic along with phenotypic information on the level of big data. Every day image systems are improving in resolution and imaging modalities for deep and longitudinal phenotyping. This provides a fertile ground for the deployment of artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning (DL) on large-scale image data, combined with strategies from statistical, quantitative and complex genetics. In this lecture, I will focus on an overview of different biomedical imaging acquisition systems and modalities, and I will outline the main image processing and analysis techniques. Together these are illustrated on applications such as, crime scene investigations and virtual autopsy, dysmorphometrics and orthognatic surgery, along with research on craniofacial evolution, development and genetics.
Key references: 1. Fundamentals of Medical Imaging (2017), Paul Suetens, Cambridge Medicine, Third Edition. 2. Sero, D. et al (2019) Facial recognition from DNA using face-to-DNA classifiers. Nature Communications, 10, Art.No. ARTN 2557. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-10617-y 3. Claes, P., et al. (2018). Genome-wide mapping of global-to-local genetic effects on human facial shape. Nature Genetics. doi: 10.1038/s41588-018-0057-4 4. Claes, P., et al. (2012). Dysmorphometrics: the modelling of morphological abnormalities. Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, 9 (5). doi: 10.1186/1742-4682-9-5
Biography: In 2002, Peter Claes graduated at the KU Leuven, department of Electrical engineering (ESAT), with a major in multimedia and signal processing. In 2007, he obtained a PhD in engineering, specifically on medical image analysis, at the KU Leuven, where he developed a computer based craniofacial reconstruction system for victim identification. He did a postdoc at the Melbourne Dental School, University of Melbourne from 2007 until 2011. This gave him the opportunity to interact deeply with other disciplinary researchers resulting in his transdisciplinary research portfolio with a versatile international network. In 2018-2019, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford under Allison Noble at the Biomedical Engineering Department, UK. Since 2014, he is an honorary fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia. Currently he is a joint BOF-ZAP research professor at the department of ESAT-PSI and the department of Human Genetics, KU Leuven, Belgium. Peter Claes is head of the multidisciplinary laboratory of Imaging Genetics.