Molecular Biomarkers & Diagnosis

Yi Wang

Yi Wang
Professor
Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University, USA

Biography

Yi Wang PhD graduated from Fudan University Shanghai with a BA in Nuclear Physics in 1986 and received his MS in Theoretical Physics from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee in 1988 and his PhD in Medical Physics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1994 with his thesis work on magnetic resonance imaging advised He completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Department of Diagnostic Radiology Mayo Clinic where he continued his research in magnetic resonance imaging technology development and where in 1996 he was promoted to the rank of Assistant Professor In 1997 he joined Cornell University Medical College as an Assistant Professor of Physics in Radiology Currently he holds the Faculty Distinguished Professorship at the Department of Radiology and is a tenured Professor of Physics in Radiology and Professor of Biomedical Engineering and a faculty member of Physiology Biophysics and System Biology graduate program Dr Wang is a Fellow of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering Dr Wang has served as a scientific reviewer of grant applications for many agencies including NIH chartered member of MEDI study section 20032007 and ad hoc member for a variety of study sections Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Swiss National Science Foundation and The Wellcome Trust United Kingdom.

Research Interest

Dr Wang’s research interest is in developing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology for clinical applications using methodologies and tools from mathematics, physics, electronic engineering, computer science, and biology. He has developed the real time navigator method to measure motion and compensate for motion artifacts in cardiac imaging, which has become widely adopted in research and clinical practice for thoracic and abdominal imaging. This navigator motion artifact suppression method holds great promise for developing high resolution multiple contrast MRI of coronary artery wall in assessing risk of plaque rupture (heart attack) in patients. Dr. Wang has also pioneered the time resolved imaging of contrast agent bolus for generating magnetic resonance angiography and the bolus chase acquisition method for generating peripheral magnetic resonance angiography, which have become routinely used in clinical imaging. Recently Dr. Wang’s group has introduced a fundamentally new approach to MRI, magnetic source MRI, for quantitatively mapping magnetic susceptibility source by inverting the local magnetic field estimated from MRI phase signal. Magnetic source MRI technology solves the magnetic field to dipole source inverse problem in Physics using multiple orientation sampling or intensity based regularization without rotation. Magnetic source MRI enables direct and quantitative detection of exogenous contrast agents that is essential to molecular MRI and contrast enhanced MRI, overcoming the traditional T1/T2/T2* relaxation based indirect and non-quantitative methods. Magnetic source MRI can also quantitatively mapping endogenous agents that holds promise for a wide range of clinical applications, including assessing cerebral hemorrhage and microbleeds, evaluating iron deposition in patients with neurodegenerative diseases, measuring deoxyhemoglobin in tumor hypoxia and ischemic stroke, assaying bone mineralization and bone fracture risk in patients with osteoporosis, measuring iron overloading in the heart and liver in patients with Thalassemia and hemochromatosis.