About Manoj Saranathan
Job title: Professor, Dept. of Radiology
Degrees: PhD ’01
Career stage: Mid-career
State of practice: Worcester, MA
Current practice settings: Research – academic
Lived career experiences/transitions:
- Starting a family while maintaining a full-time practice
- Non-clinical careers
- Work/life balance
Graduation year from the UW School of Medicine: 2001
Specialty/subspecialty: MRI
Research or other professional interests: MRI physics, acquisition, reconstruction, Image processing, neuroscience applications
Manoj’s Bio: My broad interests are in MRI physics (pulse sequence development, optimization, and reconstruction techniques), neuroimaging (MR imaging of the brain) and medical image processing/segmentation from a clinical as well as a basic science point of view. I have two current foci of interest –
Development of new methods for visualization and segmentation of subcortical structures like the thalamus and claustrum and investigating their involvement in neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric conditions (multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, alcohol use disorder etc) as well as in healthy aging. We are investigating both structural changes as well as structural and functional connectivity changes involving thalamic nuclei and thalamo-cortical circuits in these conditions.
Development of dynamic MRI methods and analyses for characterization of tumours (breast, prostate) and function (e.g. single kidney glomerular filtration rate) including methods that can help reduce use of Gadolinium contrast agents.
I have close collaborations with a number of researchers across the world interested in aspects of thalamic nuclei from neurosurgery (applications include deep brain stimulation surgery), neurology (disease progression in MS, AD, FTD, AUD, ALS), neuroscience (role of thalamus in disorders of consciousness), and neuroradiology (stroke).