Computer Vision News - May 2018

Jessica, what is your work about? My work is focused on the characterization of tumors, noninvasively through medical imaging using computer-aided diagnosis. The way that we apply it is in primarily lung cancer, but also at this conference we’re presenting work in breast cancer. What brought you to this profession? I always had an interest in science and math, and also in medicine. But the pressure of holding someone’s life in my hands was not for me, you know? I didn’t think I wanted to do anything really hands-on in medicine. With blood. With blood and getting messy. [ Laughs ] So, I thought biomedical engineering was a really interesting area to be able to make an impact on the medical field, but stay away from the blood. [ Laughs ] So, you started to study in that discipline because you wanted to help without being hands-on? Yeah, directly, and I also loved the idea of imaging specifically, because it is a little bit a sneak inside. You get to see the structure and get to see what’s inside the human body wrapping without getting inside. What do you know about the human body inside that we who are not scientists don’t know? I think the things that are really interesting is the difficulty in defining what’s normal, because there’s so much diversity among people and there are changes that are normal that occur with aging. So, I think normal feels like an easy thing to define but isn’t always. What is the most normal thing that you have seen in your career? [ Laughs ] That there can be quite a difference between structure and function. In imaging lung disease, we have different ways. In the current clinical standard, it’s pulmonary function testing to classify lung disease, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It involves the patient blowing out fast and making measurements of their lung function. We also have the radiographical data that we can extract from computer tomography imaging. So, Jessica Sieren Jessica Sieren is an assistant professor of radiology and biomedical engineering at the University of Iowa. Women in Science ISBI DAILY Friday 15 BEST OF