Scientific Advisory Board

In June 2007 as part of its ongoing program of research and development, Dexela established a group of scientific experts to advise the Company on its technology strategy and to assist it in the research, development and analysis of its technology. The group is comprised of distinguished scientists:

	Simon Arridge

Simon Arridge

Simon Arridge has been a Professor in the Department of Computer Science, UCL since 2001. As a member of UCL's image reconstruction, theory, and modelling group, he has developed a software package known as TOAST (time-resolved optical absorption and scattering tomography). He is an honorary lecturer in the department of Medical Physics, where he has helped pioneer the field of Optical Tomography, as part of the Biomedical Optics Research Group. He is also an honorary lecturer at the Institute of Neurology, where he collaborates on Magnetic Resonance Image Processing and analysis. He has been a member of the Institute of Physics since 2005 and the EPSRC College since 2006.

	Mike Brady

Mike Brady

Professor Brady FRS FEng is currently BP professor of Information Engineering at the University of Oxford, where he has established the Robotics Research Laboratory and the Wolfson Medical Vision Laboratory. The latter has a focus on medical image analysis and minimally invasive surgery.

He is a fellow of a number of engineering and scientific bodies including the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineers. In 2000 he was awarded the Faraday Medal and the Third Millennium Medal of the IEEE. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Universities of Essex, Manchester, Liverpool, Southampton, and the Universite Paul Sabatier, Toulouse. He is an honorary professor at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

	David Dance

David Dance

Dr David Dance worked in the Physics Department at the London branch of The Royal Marsden NHS Trust since 1971 and was Head of the Department from May 1997 until March 2005, when he retired. He was responsible for 29 RMT and ICR staff and students, the services they provided to the Hospital in radiotherapy physics, diagnostic radiology physics and radiation protection and for their research and teaching activities. Prior to this appointment, and since 1987, he was Head of the Hospital’s Diagnostic Radiology Physics and Computing Group. This post provided a service to the Royal Marsden Hospital and to the Royal Brompton Hospital for the quality assurance of X-ray equipment, equipment specification selection and commissioning, radiation protection (he was Radiation Protection Advisor), a computing service to the Physics Department and research. He also led an ICR team working in X-ray imaging physics.

As well as playing a strong role in the provision of clinical physics services to the Hospital, he has maintained an active research interest. His published output includes some applications in radiotherapy and nuclear medicine, but is mainly concerned with diagnostic radiology physics. He has had particular interests in Monte Carlo modelling, system optimisation and dose reduction, quality control, mammography, CT and digital systems. During his retirement, he is actively continuing research in modelling digital mammography systems.

	Dave Hawkes

Dave Hawkes

Professor Dave Hawkes has over 30 years' experience in medical imaging, working in both hospital and academic environments. He graduated in Natural Sciences (Physics) from Oxford in 1974 and obtained his PhD in X-ray computed tomography in 1981. He has worked at Southampton General Hospital, Surrey University, the Royal Marsden Hospital, St. George's Hospital, London, and Guy's Hospital, KCL where he became Chairman of the Division of Imaging Sciences. He was Director of the EPSRC and MRC funded Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration on Medical Images and Signals (MIAS-IRC), an £8M six year programme, from 2003 to 2007. Since January 2005, he has been Director of the Centre for Medical Image Computing (CMIC) at University College London. He is co-Founder of IXICO Ltd. that provides imaging solutions to the pharmaceutical industry. His current research interests encompass image matching, data fusion, visualisation, shape representation, surface geometry and modelling tissue deformation promoting medical imaging as an accurate measurement tool and image guided interventions. He is currently principal investigator of four EPSRC funded projects, one CRUK project and manager of three industrially sponsored projects. He has over 200 publications in medical imaging.

	Daniel B. Kopans

Daniel B. Kopans

Dr. Daniel B. Kopans is considered a world expert in breast cancer detection and diagnosis. He is often noted for his focus and extensive knowledge on mammography, breast imaging systems, and related technologies. Dr. Kopans is currently director of the Breast Imaging Division at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School. He has taught and written widely on all facets of mammography, and has authored more than 180 articles including an essay in the New England Journal of Medicine which, in 1984, helped to further define the specialty of mammography.

A strong advocate for screening women in the age range of 40 plus, Dr. Kopans' analyses have helped define many of the basic statistical and analytical issues involved in the controversy. His research interests include the study of the basic histologic criteria that define the morphologic appearance of lesions using three-dimensional techniques. He has guided studies using Digital Breast Tomosynthesis, positron emission tomography (PET) of the breast, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and has been a major influence on the development and clinical acceptance of digital mammography.

Dr. Kopans is the author of a textbook on breast imaging that is the standard for the field. His interests and contributions have ranged from clinical and research questions in breast cancer detection, diagnosis, and treatment through the development of a widely used biopsy guide to the education of physicians at all levels of training. He has served on numerous committees, has organized and chaired national meetings and is a Fellow of the American College of Radiology (ACR).

Dr. Kopans attended Harvard College where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree Cum Laude in 1969. He received his doctorate degree from Harvard Medical School in 1972, where he was also inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. Following a medical internship at Dartmouth, Dr. Kopans completed his residency training in 1977 at MGH in diagnostic radiology, where he received board certification and was then appointed to the staff of the Department of Radiology at MGH one year later.

	Robert M. Nishikawa

Robert M. Nishikawa

Robert M. Nishikawa received his BSc in physics in 1981 and his MSc and PhD in Medical Biophysics in 1984 and 1990, respectively, all from the University of Toronto. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Radiology and the Committee on Medical Physics at the University of Chicago. He is director of the Carl J. Vyborny Translational Laboratory for Breast Imaging Research. He is also a fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM).

His research has three intertwining themes. The first is the development of computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) techniques for x-ray imaging of the breast, in particular for digital breast tomosynthesis and full-field digital mammography (FFDM). The second is the image quality assessment and evaluation of imaging technologies, specifically, the clinical effectiveness of CAD. The evaluations include Monte Carlo modeling of using computer-aided detection in screening mammography and observer studies to understand how effectively radiologists can use computers as aids when interpreting mammograms. The third is the investigation of the performance of new breast x-ray imaging systems. These studies include the evaluation of new clinical systems, such as phase contrast mammography, and the optimization of digital breast tomosynthesis.

He has published over 100 articles, several of which have won awards. He holds 6 patents. Dr. Nishikawa has served on a number of national committees including the AAPM Research Committee and the National Mammography Quality Assurance Advisory Committee of the FDA. He was won 16 awards including the Kurt Rossmann Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Graduate Programs in Medical Physics at the University of Chicago.

	Mark B. Williams

Mark B. Williams

Mark B. Williams received his PhD in physics in 1990 from the University of Virginia (UVa) and is now Associate Professor of Radiology, Physics, and Biomedical Engineering there.

His research involves the design, development, and optimization of medical imaging technologies. During the past 10 years, his lab has focused on the development of application-specific multi-modality imaging systems, with particular emphasis on breast imaging. In collaboration with Dexela and Jefferson Lab, his group has developed an integrated breast scanning system that combines the sensitivity of digital x-ray tomosynthesis with the specificity of multiple-view molecular breast imaging. A prototype system is currently undergoing clinical evaluation at UVa. Dr. Williams serves on several national advisory committees related to breast imaging including the FDA’s National Mammography Quality Assurance Advisory Committee. He is an Associate Editor of three peer-reviewed journals related to medical imaging, and has served on the scientific committees of a number of professional and scientific bodies including the Academy of Molecular Imaging (AMI), the Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), the American College of Radiology (ACR), and the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Over the past 15 years he has acted as a scientific consultant for numerous manufacturers of medical imaging instrumentation.