Professor Alan Jackson - research

My research interests have developed from a single objective to optimize the use of modern clinical imaging systems for diagnosis, classification and therapeutic planning in patients with malignancy or other diseases of the head and neck. More recently I have been extensively involved in research related to the use of MRI in Cancer drug development. I am currently chairman elect of the drug development group of theInterntional Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM).
 

My major areas of clinical research interest are:

• Neurodegenerative diseases and dementia in the elderly
• Microvascular brain disease
• Neuro-oncology
• Angiogenesis in tumours

My research group is largely focused on methodlogical developments around image analysis with special interests in:

• Analysis of dynamic contrast enhanced images
• Design and optimization of Image analysis techniques for clinical decision support

Links:

The TINA image analysis website

The TINA package is an open source image analysis software package supported by ISBE. It contains a considerable number of analysis tools for medical data including tools for:

• Coregistration of brain images
• Correction of image intensity heterogeneity due to MRI coil abnormalities
• Automated assessment of cerebral atrophy from MRI
• Automatic identification of Taliarach coordinates and Brodman's areas
• Measurement of regional cortical thickness
• Measurement of regional cerebral small vessel blood flow from dynamic susceptibility MRI
• Measurement of contrast transfer coefficient, cerebral blood volume and extravascular extracellular space volume from dynamic T1 weighted images

Members of the Research Team:

• Dr Neil Thacker, Senior lecturer in image analysis
• Dr Geoff Parker, Research Fellow in MR physics