Researcher On Virtual Patient Simulator Wins International Computing Prize

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Article Date: 18 Sep 2008 - 10:00 PDT

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A pioneer in computational medical image analysis has won one of the largest international prizes in science, the Royal Society and Académie des Sciences Microsoft Award, it was announced recently.

Professor Nicholas Ayache, a Research Director at INRIA (the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control), has won the 250,000 euro award, funded by Microsoft.

The award will fund Professor Ayache's proposal to allow clinicians to develop individual, patient-tailored 3D models of heart disease, brain tumours and other conditions.

The 3D models will help clinicians to make early diagnoses, and surgeons to simulate different possible interventions, to aid successful therapies.

The award was also given in recognition of Professor Ayache's outstanding achievement in the field of Medical Image Analysis. He is well known as the founder of the ASCLEPIOS (Analysis and Simulation of Biomedical Images) project team, who focus on developing computational models of anatomy and physiology to help interpret images and to assist in prevention, diagnosis and therapy of diseases.

Professor Ayache said: "My goal is to create, from the medical images of any patient, a series of computational models of his/her organs and pathologies to create a personalized "virtual patient" model. The medical objective is to make this virtual patient model realistic enough to increase the potential for early diagnosis and also to plan and simulate several therapeutic strategies to select the most efficient one."

"This prize will give me and my research team the possibility to improve some of our key models in terms of realism and speed, in particular for the simulation of certain brain tumours and cardiac diseases"

The Royal Society and Académie des Sciences Microsoft Award was established to uniquely recognise outstanding contributions to science made by European scientists working at the intersection of science and computing.

The 2008 award was open to research scientists working in Europe at the interface of the biological sciences and computing.

Professor Ayache will receive his award during a ceremony at the Royal Society in London on 20 October 2008.

Professor Denis Weaire FRS, Chair of the judging panel, and representative of the Royal Society, said: "Professor Ayache has been one of most influential leaders in the development of medical image analysis, which is becoming an essential tool throughout modern medicine. His work on early minimal invasive surgery and the application of surface differential geometry to modelling 3D surfaces, such as the surface of the skull, was groundbreaking. His current research is creating sophisticated models of human organs and promises to radically improve diagnosis and treatment."

Jules Hoffman President of the Académie des Sciences, said: "The Académie des Sciences is happy to present, together with the Royal Society, the Microsoft Award to Professor Nicholas Ayache. His outstanding research has firmly grounded the fields of computational medicine and surgery in mathematics and computation. In particular his work on the statistics of three-dimensional shapes, the combination of several imaging modalities, and the development of computational models combining anatomy and physiology is paving the way to earlier disease detection and more efficient and safer treatments for patients."

"Professor Ayache's outstanding research in the field of biomedical imaging and analysis has led to breakthroughs which help to better prevent, diagnose and treat diseases. It's an impressive example of the vital role computer science can play in helping us to tackle some of the world's most pressing challenges." said Dr Andrew Herbert, Managing Director of Microsoft Research Cambridge. "We place great importance on supporting leading European scientists such as Professor Ayache, who are pushing the boundaries of computing and science, and one way in which we do this is through the Microsoft Award."

Notes

1. The Royal Society is an independent academy promoting the natural and applied sciences. Founded in 1660, the Society has three roles, as the UK academy of science, as a learned Society, and as a funding agency. It responds to individual demand with selection by merit, not by field. As we prepare for our 350th anniversary in 2010, we are working to achieve five strategic priorities, to:

- Invest in future scientific leaders and in innovation
- Influence policymaking with the best scientific advice
- Invigorate science and mathematics education
- Increase access to the best science internationally
- Inspire an interest in the joy, wonder and excitement of scientific discovery

The Royal Society

2. The Académie des Sciences, founded in 1666, one of the five Academies of the Institut de France, is an independent body. By virtue of its multidisciplinary approach and its interactions with other branches of knowledge, its missions are to:

- encourage scientific life and contribute to progress in sciences and their applications;
- formulate recommendations concerning problems of national or international interest related to sciences and their social implications;
- develop international scientific relations, notably in Europe;
- monitor the quality of the teaching of sciences;
- encourage the diffusion of science among the public.

The Académie des Sciences

3. About Microsoft Research

Founded in 1991, Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both basic and applied research in computer science and software engineering. Its goals are to enhance the user experience on computing devices, reduce the cost of writing and maintaining software, and invent novel computing technologies. Researchers focus on more than 55 areas of computing and collaborate with leading academic, government and industry researchers to advance the state of the art in such areas as graphics, speech recognition, user-interface research, natural language processing, programming tools and methodologies, operating systems and networking, and the mathematical sciences. Microsoft Research currently employs more than 800 people in six labs located in Redmond, Wash.; Cambridge, Mass.; Silicon Valley, Calif.; Cambridge, England; Beijing, China; and Bangalore, India. Microsoft Research collaborates openly with colleges and universities worldwide to enhance the teaching and learning experience, inspire technological innovation, and broadly advance the field of computer science.

4. Prof Ayache will receive a trophy and 250,000 euro, of which 7,500 euro will be prize money with the rest earmarked for research.

5. The winner of the 2007 award was Professor Giorgio Parisi from University of Rome "La Sapienza", for his outstanding contribution in the fields of quantum chromodynamics and spin glasses. The winner of the 2006 award was Dr Dennis Bray at University of Cambridge, for his research using innovative computer simulations of biological systems.

Microsoft Research