Hopkins to receive Norton Medal, UB’s highest honor

UB News Release, April 26, 2019, By Sue Wuetcher

Hopkins to receive Norton Medal, UB’s highest honor, at commencement

L. Nelson Hopkins will receive the Norton Medal at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences’ commencement ceremony on May 3.

As one of the founding figures of endovascular treatment for neurovascular disorders, Hopkins has redefined the field of vascular neurosurgery in stroke management and lesion stenting. In the process, he has trained a new generation of neurosurgeons in catheter-based technology for minimally invasive neurosurgery. Hopkins’ innovations in endovascular surgery serve as the benchmark for therapeutic endovascular intervention.

An advocate of cross-specialty collaboration, Hopkins fostered the creation of UB’s Toshiba (now Canon) Stroke & Vascular Research Center. He also conceived a new way to organize the multidisciplinary treatment of vascular disease, working with experts from around the world to design the Gates Vascular Institute. Hopkins then recruited the necessary partners to bring it and the Jacobs Institute — a non-profit dedicated to accelerating the development of next-generation technologies in vascular medicine — to life.

He currently is chief scientific officer of the Jacobs Institute, after serving as chair of the Department of Neurosurgery from 1989-2013. He joined the UB faculty in 1975.

Hopkins has served on the board of directors of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and on the executive committee of the Stroke Council of the American Heart Association. A past president of the American Academy of Neurological Surgery, he is a former chairman of the scientific and annual meetings of AANS and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, and of the Joint Section on Cerebrovascular Surgery.

The UB President’s Medal, first presented in 1990, recognizes “outstanding scholarly or artistic achievements, humanitarian acts, contributions of time or treasure, exemplary leadership or any other major contribution to the development of the University at Buffalo and the quality of life in the UB community.”

UB spinoff lands nearly $1 million in federal funding

UB News, Nov. 4, 2019, by Charlotte Hsu

Neurovascular Diagnostics was co-founded by a local entrepreneur who lost his wife to aneurysms

BUFFALO, N.Y. — In 2002, Western New York entrepreneur Jeff Harvey lost his wife and high school sweetheart, Carol Harvey, to two ruptured brain aneurysms.

Years later, he is honoring her memory by working with University at Buffalo engineering and medical researchers with the goal of preventing similar deaths.

Jeff Harvey is co-founder of Neurovascular Diagnostics, a UB spinoff company that is developing a low-cost blood test to screen high-risk patients for unruptured brain aneurysms — pathological bulging in blood vessels that can eventually burst.

In 2015, Meng and Tutino, then her PhD student, submitted a grant application to the Brain Aneurysm Foundation to conduct innovative research geared toward detection of unruptured aneurysms. The study was selected for funding, and by chance, through the fund honoring Carol Harvey.

After the announcement of the awards, Jeff Harvey and Meng sought each other out – not difficult, given that they were both in Buffalo.

Jeff Harvey found the funded research extremely interesting and convinced Meng, Tutino, and Snyder to start a company with the goal of translating their work into a technology that could be commercialized to help patients.

The team also includes Kerry Poppenberg, a UB PhD candidate in biomedical engineering who is not employed by Neurovascular Diagnostics but works on aneurysm research in Meng’s lab through a grant from the UB Center for Advanced Technology in Big Data and Health Sciences (UB CAT), with matching funds from the company.

Like Jeff Harvey, Poppenberg was inspired in part by a personal experience — the loss of her grandmother, an avid reader with many interests who volunteered for numerous organizations, ranging from a nursery school to a hospice program, after retiring from a job at an insurance company. She often cared for Poppenberg and Poppenberg’s siblings when they were kids.

“I took Dr. Meng’s class and I learned about the research she was doing,” Poppenberg says, regarding how she became involved in Meng’s lab. “My grandmother died of an aneurysm, so it appealed to me that this is a project that can help people.”

The screening that Neurovascular Diagnostics is developing with NSF support would look for signs of a brain aneurysm in patients’ blood cells. As Tutino explains, the thinking is that inflammation caused by a brain aneurysm may alter gene expression in cells, causing levels of some RNA molecules in the cells to rise, and others to fall. The company’s blood test — AneuScreenTM — would detect these differences. The NIH-funded research could further enhance the test by identifying biomarkers that could provide insight into how risky a patient’s aneurysm may be. (Read More)

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The screening that Neurovascular Diagnostics is developing with NSF support would look for signs of a brain aneurysm in patients’ blood cells.

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Rudin is named SPIE Fellow for advancing medical physics

UB News Release, May 2, 2018, By Ellen Goldbaum

"Rudin is named SPIE Fellow for advancing medical physics to improve the diagnosis and treatment of stroke"

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Stephen Rudin, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Radiology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, has been named a Fellow of SPIE, the International Society for Optics and Photonics.

Rudin, who directs UB’s Division of Radiation Physics, is one of 73 major international figures in optics, photonics and imaging named SPIE Fellows this year. A faculty member since 1977, he is being recognized for his achievements in image-guided endovascular interventions and medical physics.

A pioneer in developing new technologies in medical diagnostics and interventional imaging, Rudin has been at the forefront of developing high-resolution X-ray imaging detectors, dose reduction methods, and endovascular devices such as asymmetric stents.

Rudin’s work has major theoretical and clinical implications for medical physics, biomedical engineering and diagnostic radiology, as well as an immediate impact upon patient diagnosis and care, particularly in cases of heart and brain treatment. A leader in advanced X-ray planar and tomography imaging in neuroimaging applications, he has been involved in further developing X-ray angiography and computed tomography (CT) for diagnosis and assessment of neurovascular diseases.

Working with colleagues in the Canon Stroke and Vascular Research Center (formerly the Toshiba Stroke Research Center), Rudin and his team have been developing imaging methods geared toward replacing invasive neurovascular surgical procedures for treating pathologies, such as aneurysms, with minimally invasive image-guided interventions.

With continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health and other sources since 1977, Rudin has led the development of prototype high-resolution, real-time imaging detectors for diagnosing neurovascular diseases. He also has spent much of his career developing techniques that will minimize radiation doses patients receive during procedures such as angiography and CT scans, while improving device guidance.

He has had consistent support from industry, including Toshiba and Canon, for developing new imaging techniques to improve diagnosis and treatment of stroke and related disorders, with some of the projects resulting in products distributed worldwide.

Rudin founded and directs UB’s Medical Physics Graduate program, one of only 41 such nationally accredited programs in the U.S., and he has advised more than 110 graduate students at UB and Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. His group has received numerous awards including first prizes for projects, such as the creation of patient-specific 3D phantoms for vascular procedure treatment planning and research, patient dose savings with region of interest fluoroscopy, automatic brightness control in digital fluoroscopy, evaluation of amorphous selenium for fluoroscopy, new approaches to quality assurance in digital radiography, and a variety of other projects.

Rudin also has held joint appointments in the UB departments of Neurosurgery, Physiology and Biophysics, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; and Physics.

A consistent contributor to the SPIE Medical Imaging Symposium and the SPIE medical imaging community in general, Rudin's advocacy and commitment to the field have resulted in UB’s recognized prominence in medical imaging internationally.

The author of more than 500 publications including over 200 SPIE articles and presentations, he has been awarded four patents and has received numerous awards from other major scientific societies, such as the Radiological Society of North America and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. At UB, he is the recipient of a Sustained Achievement Award, a Product Development Fund Award and the Stockton Kimball Award, the highest honor for a UB faculty member in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Rudin and his family live in Williamsville, New York.

UB biomedical engineer uses 3D printing to enhance surgery

UBNow, Dec 14, 2018, by Gina Marie Ciappina

"UB biomedical engineer uses 3D printing to create brain and heart models to enhance surgery"

A UB team of biomedical engineers, neurosurgeons and cardiovascular interventionalists has developed a way to generate 3D prints of the human vascular system, giving surgeons pre-surgical, hands-on access to individual patients’ life-threatening vascular diseases in the heart and brain before any scalpels ever touch human skin.

Initiated by Ciprian “Chip” Ionita, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Adnan Siddiqui, professor of neurosurgery in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, the method that creates 3D prints is already being used to better prepare doctors performing delicate surgeries to treat such conditions as stroke, aneurysms, cardiac arrest and congestive heart failure.

The 3D prints also are being used to train residents and medical students learning how to proceed with these delicate and often life-or-death procedures.

“The whole idea of these 3D-printed models is to not only mimic patient anatomy, but to also mimic some of their vascular mechanical properties,” says Ionita, whose Department of Biomedical Engineering is a joint department in the Jacobs School and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Before 3D printing, these lifelike models were costly, complicated to make and had to be shipped from Switzerland at a cost of more than $12,000 each. Now, each model costs about $100 and can be produced specifically for one patient. The number of models and their specifics suitable for 3D printing are endless — and can be custom-made to fit individual patients.

Ionita and Siddiqui began their 3D-printing research when the Clinical and Translational Research Center (CRTC), Gates Vascular Institute (GVI) and Jacobs Institute were created to place engineers, physicists and vascular surgeons all under one roof.

“We are now able to optimize our research by meeting every day and working together,” Ionita says.

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“Without human interrelation between the researchers and the surgeons, the meaningful medical work can’t be done. ” -Chip Ionita

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New brain surgery innovation: Practice on a 3-D model

UB News, November 24, 2015

Adnan Siddiqui, vice chair of neurosurgery, was interviewed by CNBC about his success treating a brain aneurysm in a Western New York mother-of-three after using a 3-D printer to model the aneurysm. He said that about a year ago, the physicians and surgeons working at the Jacobs Institute thought about using the Stratasys printer, not just for general training, but for specific surgeries. "We said, 'Why can't we print out brain aneurysms on these models?' " Siddiqui said…."This is going to change the way we train physicians," Siddiqui said of 3-D replicas. "I think this is going to impact every aspect of medical care."

Radiology software developed at UB receives award

UB Now, Jan 8, 2015, by Sue Wuetcher

Software developed by UB researchers at the university’s Toshiba Stroke & Vascular Research Center has received a 2014 “Minnies” award from AuntMinnie.com, one of the top websites in the radiology community.

The Dose Tracking System (DTS) — marketed by Toshiba but developed by a research group led by Daniel Bednarek, professor of radiology — took first place as “Best New Radiology Software” for 2014. It debuted last March at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.

The DTS gives physicians a better idea of how much radiation patients are receiving during interventional fluoroscopic procedures, such as cardiac catheter ablation, vascular embolization and stent, filter or coil placement.

The DTS provides real-time data on the delivery of radiation during these interventional procedures via a detailed, intuitive, color-coded, 3-D map of the skin-dose distribution on a graphic of the patient. It highlights, with changing colors, if and when an area targeted to receive radiation should be changed to distribute the skin dose and minimize the chances of locally concentrated radiation exposure.

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The dose tracking system is the declared the

“Most Innovative Technology” at the 2012 meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

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UB granted $2.5M for image technology research

Buffalo Business First, Feb 20, 2013, by Dan Miner

A University at Buffalo researcher has received a four-year, $2.5 million federal grant to continue developing technology within a new class of image detectors.

The research of Stephen Rudin, director of UB’s Division of Radiation Physics, “has the potential to translate into manufactured medical systems providing new standards of care in neurovascular medicine,” according to a UB news release. The funding comes through the National Institutes of Health.

Rudin and other collaborators are furthering development of a high-resolution, region-of-interest X-ray imaging detector designed to provide better images while minimizing patients’ radiation doses.

The micro-angiographic fluoroscope (MAF) was designed by Rudin and his team during earlier phases of research. They recently achieved promising results after using the MAF to guide human interventions and will focus in the future on enhancing the detector system technology.

They plan to continue testing on patients as developments are implemented.

Rudin is joined by several UB collaborators, including Daniel Bednarek, professor of radiology, neurosurgery and physiology and biophysics; Dr. L. Nelson Hopkins, professor and chair of neurosurgery; Dr. Elad Levy, professor of neurosurgery and radiology; Dr. Adnan Siddiqui, associate professor of neurosurgery and radiology; Ciprian Ionita, researcher professor at the Toshiba Stroke and Vascular Research Center; Jihnhee Yu, associate professor of biostatistics in the School of Public Health and Health Professions.

Michael Silver, vice president for research at Toshiba Medical Research Institute USA, is also working on the project.

CTRC imaging center is devoted exclusively to research

UB News, July 1, 2013, by Ellen Goldbaum

"UB’s new CTRC imaging center is Western New York’s first devoted exclusively to research"

Imaging center provides researchers exclusive 24/7 access to some of the most powerful scanners available

BUFFALO, N.Y. – University at Buffalo biomedical researchers now have round-the-clock access to the most advanced imaging scanners available, as a result of four major acquisitions in the new imaging facility in UB’s Clinical and Translational Research Center (CTRC).

The new facility is Western New York’s first biomedical imaging facility dedicated exclusively to research.

“The new CTRC Imaging Center is a huge step forward for clinical research in Buffalo,” says Timothy F. Murphy, MD, CTRC director, senior associate dean for clinical and translational research at UB and SUNY Distinguished Professor in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. “It is an excellent resource for investigators at UB and Roswell Park and a powerful tool allowing researchers in the Buffalo Translational Consortium to perform state-of-the-art imaging studies.

“It’s also a huge recruiting tool,” he says. “State-of-the-art imaging has become an increasingly important element of translational research. Modern imaging techniques now provide information that previously could only be obtained from biopsies or autopsies. Many leading translational researchers have made imaging a critical aspect of their research.”

John M. Canty, Jr., MD, the Albert and Elizabeth Rekate Professor of Medicine has been appointed director of the CTRC Imaging Center, located in the CTRC on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC). Robert Zivadinov, MD, PhD, UB professor of neurology and director of the Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center, has been appointed the center’s director of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Among the new center’s capabilities are:

9.4 Tesla Bruker MRI (Tesla indicates the strength of the magnetic field it generates)
3 Tesla Toshiba MRI
Positron emission tomography/computing tomography (PET/CT)
CT

Now, researchers at UB and partner institutions on the BNMC will have a total of four new state-of-the-art scanners at their disposal that are devoted exclusively to clinical and preclinical research. (Full Article)

Stroke center lands $15.8M deal with Toshiba

Buffalo Business First, March 9, 2012

An “unbelievable” $15.8 million commitment for new equipment and support from Toshiba Corp. will allow the University at Buffalo to expand its Toshiba Stroke Research Center this spring.

The commitment from Toshiba. includes $7 million in new imaging equipment, plus service and research support for 10 years valued at $8.8 million.

“This package is almost unbelievable, in terms of all the cool stuff that’s happening here,” says Dr. L. Nelson Hopkins, co-director of the center and chairman of the neurosurgery department in UB’s School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. “When people come from other places to see it, it knocks them off their feet.”

Doug Ryan, vice president of marketing and strategic development at Toshiba America Medical Systems in California, says Hopkins and his team at the Toshiba Stroke Research Center have made tremendous strides, and the company is eager to continue supporting those efforts. “I think we’ve changed the paradigm of stroke treatment here in the United States, at least,” he says. “It really is a tremendously exciting opportunity the team has created there,” he says. “I really think it’s going to be a world-class center in the United States.”

The Toshiba Stroke Research Center will move from its current home at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital to the top floor of the new Clinical and Translational Research Center, which is set to open in May on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus in a shared building with Kaleida Health’s Gates Vascular Institute. Much of the imaging equipment installed in recent weeks on the lower floors of the building in Kaleida’s GVI are also Toshiba machines. Ryan says the concept of the building is recognized as revolution-ary and is probably a model of how health care will be delivered in the future.

“It’s something that we believe is really the model of the future and that’s the main reason we’re so interested in supporting it,” he says.

Hopkins says having the Toshiba center in the same building as the GVI and the CTRC is key, as researchers can advance their work and test it without ever having to leave the building. “We’re developing new ideas and innovations and learning how to use them on patients, and training physicians and scientists on how it gets used,” he says. “Then if we need to test it further, we can take it right upstairs to the Toshiba Stroke Research Center.”

The new equipment from Toshiba will be installed this summer, including two biplane angiography machines; a 3T MRI (3 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging) unit; a 320-slice computed tomography (CT) scanner; and advanced ultrasound equipment.

Co-founded by Hopkins in 1997 with a $3.6 million gift from Toshiba, the research center was designed as a place where researchers from different disciplines could collaborate on stroke research. Toshiba has contributed a total of $25.8 million over the past 13 years. Hopkins is considered a superstar in the neurosurgery world and has developed a reputation based on his innovations in minimally invasive surgical techniques to treat aneurysms and stroke.

The Toshiba Stroke Research Center focuses on research related to the prevention and treatment of vascular disease through minimally invasive techniques.

Hopkins and his team have formed a series of strategic alliances with local, national and international partners to advance their research. Advances to date in imaging optimization have also led to potential new advances in device design, which in turn have presented new opportunities for hemodynamic investigation.

Recent successes touted on the center’s website include the development of a micro-angiographic fluoroscopy system that shows detail at the site of neurological intervention two to three times more clearly than imaging equipment now in use. The team is now working to make the system operator-friendly.

In addition to Toshiba, research at the center has been supported by federal grants from the National Institutes of Health. That includes the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering; and the National Science Foundation.