Biomedical Technology Unit (BITU, bitu.upatras.gr), is headed by Emeritus Prof. N. Pallikarakis, is recognized as one of the pioneers and major contributors to the development of Digital Tomosynthesis (DTS). The research has been directed towards the development, validation and implementation of a DTS imaging prototype, based on the Multiple Projection Algorithm (MPA), developed in the early 80’s and patented in 1994. It was then applied into a Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) formulation. Concurrently, research was oriented towards noise removal algorithms, motion correction methods and simulation. In the end of 90s, the basic Radiographic Simulator was developed along with a realistic Breast Model, resulting in a Mammographic Simulator and the Dual-Energy Simulator. The Radiographic Simulator has evolved to a dedicated X-ray Imaging Simulator that incorporates Monte Carlo methods for simulation of irradiation transport. Further on a Monte Carlo based simulator of the Radiotherapy Treatment chain was developed and validated. BITU’s team possess a strong experience in modelling and simulation with in house developed software and hardware tools. The team has performed simulations in testing new technologies of treatment of neck and head cancers, imaging of the breast cancers, brain cancer imaging simulation and dual energy techniques. All this experience will be used in order to manage and guide the proposed research project into combining the state of the art computational and signal processing techniques with medical imaging. BITU will provide all the support needed in infrastructure, project management experience, available personnel and technological equipment along with available mammographic data that have been acquired either experimentally from BITU’s experiments in the Elettra synchrotron facility or real clinical data from collaborating hospitals and physicians, in order to achieve project’s stated objectives. This research activity lead to more than 100 Publications in peer reviewed journals and 12 PhD thesis on this area over the last 25 years.
Emeritus Prof. N. Pallikarakis, former Director of the BME postgraduate program, Author of more than 130 scientific papers and Project Coordinator of more than 30 national and European R&D projects, National delegate for the MD Standing Committee (DG III), the HCF of CEN and elected member of the International Academy of MBE. He will be the overall coordinator of the project and will participate in all WP (without getting paid for his contribution)
Dr. Aristeidis Dermitzakis, holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering in the field of x-ray imaging, will be responsible for the scientific and technical coordination of the overall project, and more specifically for the ML, simulation and evaluation tasks of the project.
Dr. Natassa Daskalaki, holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering in the field of Breast Imaging, will be responsible for the breast imaging simulation tasks and experimental data image characterization for the algorithm training tasks.
Dr. Dimitris Ampeliotis, holds a PhD in Signal Processing, will be responsible for the SRT related tasks of the project.
Dr. Anthi Malliori, holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering in the field of Tomosynthesis for Breast Imaging, will be working on breast imaging simulation tasks and experimental data image characterization needed for algorithm training tasks.
Dr. Evangelos Vlachos, holds a PhD in Signal Processing and is currently a post doc researcher in University of Edinburgh School of Engineering, which will be a collaborating institution, offering great advantage to this project’s overall expertise. He will be working for the SRT and ML related tasks of the project.