Peder Larson, PhD
Professor
Radiology
School of Medicine

415-514-4876

Peder Larson, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at the University of California, San Francisco. He is also the Director of the Body Imaging Research Group and a co-Leader of the Hyperpolarized MRI Technology Resource Center.

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Dr. Larson's research program includes a range of imaging technology development targeting improved clinical outcomes, with projects on metabolic MRI, lung MRI, myelin imaging, PET/MRI, and radiation therapy planning:

Metabolic imaging methods using hyperpolarized carbon-13 MRI This technology uses non-toxic, non-ionizing contrast agents to provide unique metabolism information, and is currently in clinical trials. Our team develops data acquisition, image reconstruction, and data analysis methods for this technology for a broad range of collaborators and applications. We are also leading new patient studies of this technology in renal cancers and heart disease.

Lung MRI Conventional MRI performs very poorly in the lungs but our team has developed methods based on ultrashort echo time (UTE) MRI to provide high quality, high-resolution lung MRI. We are pursuing development of functional imaging biomarkers and translation onto clinical MRI scanners, with a focus on pediatric studies to reduce radiation dose compared to CT.

Myelin MRI Our team has pioneered a new MRI approach for direct imaging of myelin based on ultrashort echo time (UTE) MRI. Other MRI methods provide indirect myelin measurements based measurements on nearby water. We are continuing to develop this technique as a quantitative imaging method, and translating into studies evaluating myelination in disease.

PET/MRI Hybrid PET/MRI systems combine the functional information from PET tracers with the soft-tissue contrast from MRI. Our team is working on PET/MRI technology developments for motion management, quantitative imaging, and multi-modal data analysis with this modality.

Radiation Therapy PLanning Applications of MRI in radiotherapy have increased significantly over the past decade due to the high level of soft tissue provided, often allowing for better visualization of tumors and organs at risk versus computed tomography (CT). Our team is working to develop specialized MR techniques to accurately estimate parameters used for radiotherapy dose calculation as a critical step towards MRI-only treatment planning.

Dr. Larson is an active member of International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineering, the UC Berkeley and UCSF Graduate Group in Bioengineering, the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, and the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute.

Awards

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  • Editor's Pick "MoCoLoR for simultaneous structural and functional UTE Lung MRI", Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2023
  • Best Long Oral Presentation "Understanding and Visualizing Generalization in Unets", Medical Imaging with Deep Learning (MIDL), 2021
  • Chancellor Award for Disability Service, UCSF Office of Diversity & Outreach, 2021
  • Editor's Pick "Extreme MRI: Large-scale volumetric dynamic imaging from continuous acquisitions", Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2020
  • Editor's Pick "Iterative motion-compensation reconstruction UTE for free-breathing pulmonary MRI", Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2020
  • Distinguished Investigator, Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research, 2019
  • Research Scholar, American Cancer Society, 2018
  • Editors Pick "In vivo characterization of brain ultrashort-T2 components", Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2018
  • Junior Fellow, International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 2011
  • Surbeck Scholar Award, 1st place, University of California, San Francisco, 2011

Education & Training

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  • Postdoctoral Scholar Radiology and Biomedical Imaging University of California, San Francisco 2011
  • PhD Electrical Engineering Stanford University 2007
  • MS Electrical Engineering Stanford University 2003
  • BS Electrical Engineering & Mathematics Stanford University 2002

Interests

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  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
  • hyperpolarized carbon-13 metabolic MRI imaging methods
  • tendon imaging
  • MR pulse sequence development
  • semi-solid tissue MRI
  • semi-solid tissue imaging (tendons
  • myelin
  • meniscus
  • cortical bone
  • RF pulse design
  • lung imaging
  • Electrical Engineering
  • myelin imaging
  • prostate cancer
  • Signal Processing
  • Medical Imaging
  • PET/MRI
  • cancer imaging
  • bone imaging
  • Bioengineering

Websites

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Videos

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Grants and Projects

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Publications (198)

Top publication keywords:
Magnetic Resonance ImagingPhantoms, ImagingUreaImaging, Three-DimensionalEcho-Planar ImagingPyruvic AcidCarbon IsotopesImage Processing, Computer-AssistedCarbon-13 Magnetic Resonance SpectroscopyLactic AcidSignal-To-Noise RatioBicarbonatesMolecular ImagingMagnetic Resonance SpectroscopyAlgorithms

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