Introduction: My group is focused on the development of X-Ray imaging techniques for clinical and research applications. In the US 72% of medical imaging procedures involve X-rays such as radiography, angiography, CT and image guided interventional procedures. We tackle two major challenges shared by these modalities, which are the lack of tissue specificity and the concern of ionizing radiation exposure. We take advantage of the wave nature of x-rays to add two new dimensions to the image contrast. These are wave scattering and refractive bending. Wave scattering reveals microscopic structures which is independent from the conventional attenuation contrast. Materials that are indistinguishable by x-ray attenuation can be separated in the scattering dimension, similar to the benefit of 2D versus 1D gel electrophoresis. Refractive bending, or phase contrast, offers the potential of significant dose reduction since it arises from the refractive index variations in the body and does not require energy absorption. The wave nature of x-ray also opens avenues for shaping the x-ray beam with advanced optics for the purpose of measuring x-ray refraction and diffraction in tissue. Our accomplishments: This year the concept, hardware and software we developed for x-ray imaging have been adapted to neutron precision imaging and measurements in a collaboration with NIST. We obtained first measurements in exploring transparent x-ray optics that enable high-resolution wave imaging. Animal studies lead to a precise understanding of the role and boundary conditions of wave imaging for biological applications, and motivated a new stage of technical development centered on high-resolution imaging. Future plan: this year we entered into a new phase of the project which focuses on transparent x-ray optics and high-resolution imaging, with the aim of improving pathology analysis of biopsy tissue specimen.

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22
Fiscal Year
2018
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U.S. National Heart Lung and Blood Inst
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George, Alex; Chen, Peter Y; Morales-Martinez, Alejandro et al. (2017) Geometric calibration and correction for a lens-coupled detector in x-ray phase-contrast imaging. J Med Imaging (Bellingham) 4:013507
Miao, Houxun; Panna, Alireza; Gomella, Andrew A et al. (2016) A Universal Moiré Effect and Application in X-Ray Phase-Contrast Imaging. Nat Phys 12:830-834
Miao, Houxun; Chen, Lei; Mirzaeimoghri, Mona et al. (2016) Cryogenic Etching of High Aspect Ratio 400 nm Pitch Silicon Gratings. J Microelectromech Syst 25:963-967
Miao, Houxun; Gomella, Andrew A; Harmon, Katherine J et al. (2015) Enhancing Tabletop X-Ray Phase Contrast Imaging with Nano-Fabrication. Sci Rep 5:13581
Nayak, Krishna S; Nielsen, Jon-Fredrik; Bernstein, Matt A et al. (2015) Cardiovascular magnetic resonance phase contrast imaging. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 17:71
Harmon, Katherine J; Miao, Houxun; Gomella, Andrew A et al. (2015) Motionless electromagnetic phase stepping versus mechanical phase stepping in x-ray phase-contrast imaging with a compact source. Phys Med Biol 60:3031-43
Harmon, Katherine J; Bennett, Eric E; Gomella, Andrew A et al. (2014) Efficient decoding of 2D structured illumination with linear phase stepping in X-ray phase contrast and dark-field imaging. PLoS One 9:e87127
Wen, Han; Gomella, Andrew A; Patel, Ajay et al. (2014) Boosting phase contrast with a grating Bonse-Hart interferometer of 200 nanometre grating period. Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci 372:20130028
Miao, Houxun; Gomella, Andrew A; Chedid, Nicholas et al. (2014) Fabrication of 200 nm period hard X-ray phase gratings. Nano Lett 14:3453-8
Wei, Hongjiang; Viallon, Magalie; Delattre, Benedicte M A et al. (2013) Assessment of cardiac motion effects on the fiber architecture of the human heart in vivo. IEEE Trans Med Imaging 32:1928-38

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