Dr Marc Modat

• Lecturer in Translational Neuroimaging

Marc's research interests are in image processing and more specifically in medical image registration applied to brain MRI data.

He obtained his 'Diplôme d'Ingénieur' in 2007 from the Institut Supérieur des Biosciences de Paris, and then a PhD degree from University College London (UCL) in 2012. In 2011, Marc received the Young UCL Investigator in Neuroimaging Techniques award. He is the main contributor of the NiftyReg package, an open-source software platform for efficient registration of medical images [1].

Medical image registration is a computationally expensive task due to the high number of degrees of freedom of the non-rigid transformations. During his PhD, Marc refactored the well established free-form deformation (FFD) algorithm [2] in order to enable fast processing, while maintaining the accuracy of the results. In addition, he employed parallel computing paradigms to provide near real-time image registration capabilities [3]. Further modifications have been performed to improve the registration robustness to artifacts such as tissues non-uniformity [4]. Additionally, diffeomorphic extensions to the algorithm were also developed [5].

Marc's two main clinical interests are (i) understanding disease progression and 4D modelling and (ii) surgical planning and guidance using interventional imaging modalities.

• Marc is also part of the Translational Imaging Group - see his profile at http://cmictig.cs.ucl.ac.uk/people/2
  

References:

[1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/niftyreg/develop 

[2] Rueckert, D., Sonoda, L. I., Hayes, C., Hill, D. L. G., Leach, M. O., & Hawkes, D. J. (1999). Nonrigid registration using free-form deformations: Application to breast MR images. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 18(8), 712–721. doi:10.1109/42.796284

[3] Modat, M., Ridgway, G. R., Taylor, Z. A., Lehmann, M., Barnes, J., Hawkes, D. J., Fox, N. C., et al. (2010). Fast free-form deformation using graphics processing units. Computer Methods And Programs In Biomedicine, 98(3), 278–284. doi:10.1016/j.cmpb.2009.09.002

[4] Modat, M., Ridgway, G. R., Hawkes, D. J., Fox, N. C., & Ourselin, S. (2010). Nonrigid registration with differential bias correction using normalised mutual information (pp. 356–359). Presented at the Biomedical Imaging: From Nano to Macro, IEEE International Symposium on. doi:10.1109/ISBI.2010.5490337

[5] Modat, M., Ridgway, G. R., Daga, P., Cardoso, M. J., Ashburner., J., Ourselin, S.. (2012). Parametric non-rigid registration using a stationary velocity field (pp. 145–150). Presented at the Mathematical Methods in Biomedical Image Analysis (MMBIA), IEEE Workshop on. doi:10.1109/MMBIA.2012.6164745