The seminar titled "Precision Imaging for Non-invasive Precision Medicine: Examples from Hybrid Molecular Imaging of Cancer" will take place on October 18.

About The Seminar:
The efficacy of therapeutics for diseases such as cancer is still at a low level despite recent advances in medicine. Achieving early and high diagnostic accuracy is still an important objective. Many clinical trials are still failing. These issues demonstrate an urgent need for undertaking new approaches such as precision medicine to biomedical research. In parallel with other industries, biomedical research and technologies need to use more of the disciplines that are standard in safety critical industries. We therefore claim that quality theory, machine learning, statistical systems modeling are some of the disciplines that need to be fully integrated in new biomedical curricula. Furthermore, new fields such as Functional Medicine and Systems Biology are becoming essential. A complex systems approach seems to be needed to find robust and sustainable solutions to current medical problems.

We begin our presentation with figures that show the current situation and concepts from the quality movement initiated by Dr. W. Edwards Deming. We then explain how multivariable process optimization techniques often used in manufacturing industries can be used to improve biomedical systems design. We present studies using Monte Carlo simulation and techniques for the design of experiments such as the response surface methodology (RSM) which is suitable for optimizing systems that cannot be described analytically. New statistical signal processing techniques are now being adapted for improving the performance of molecular imaging systems such as PET and SPECT. Efficacy of therapeutics for suitable patients can also be improved by the use of machine learning (ML) or other mathematical modeling techniques, by predicting the effect of certain viruses, genetic variations, grade, stage, prognosis and the response to therapy. This reduces side effects and invasive procedures such as biopsy. We will give examples of our most recent research with our international partners on realized achievements.