Dr. Nabil Maalej graduated with MS and Ph.D. degrees in medical physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI, USA. He also earned an MS in electrical engineering (Biomedical track) from the same university and a BS in EE from the University of Rochester, NY, USA. He worked as a research assistant at the biomedical instrumentation lab and as a research associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Cardiovascular Research Lab. He was a consultant in designing and developing medical devices at Arthur D. Little, Inc. in Boston. He joined King Fahd University of Petroleum in 2001 and led a team to establish the first master’s program in medical physics in the region. He mentored more than 30 competent medical physicists who are serving mostly in cancer imaging and treatment centers. He joined KU in 2021 to help establish the first UAE master’s program in medical physics. He was the primary investigator in five funded research projects and a coinvestigator in seven research projects in the fields of medical physics and biomedical engineering. He published more than fifty-five Journal papers and more than seventy-five conference papers. He earned three US patents in X-ray imaging development. His research interests are in medical physics and biomedical instrumentation in general and, in particular, the optimization of medical imaging, the development of nanoparticles for X-ray and MRI imaging, the development of new parametric imaging techniques, and the application of AI to medical imaging and radiation therapy. He earned the best teacher award at KFUPM in 2005. He supervised and co-supervised more than thirty MS and Ph.D. students. Throughout his career, he led and served on many committees at the department, college, university, and national levels.
Cancer cell Enhanced Spectral CT Scanner Imaging using Functionalized Nanoparticles Contrast Agents.
This study involves the synthesis, characterization and spectral CT imaging of gold nanoparticles tailored to enhance the contrast of small cancer lesions. We used modified Turkevich method to produce thiol-capped gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). We thoroughly characterized the AuNPs using TEM, XRD, DLS, and UV-visible absorption spectroscopy. We designed and built a new material contrast detail phantom for CT imaging and determined the minimum detectable concentrations of AuNPs in simulated lesions of small diameters (1, 2, 3, and 5 mm). The AuNPs image contrast was directly proportional to the AuNPs concentration, with the lowest visually distinguishable contrast achieved at a gold concentration of 5 mg/ml for a 2 mm simulated lesion. This newly developed phantom can be used to determine the minimal concentration required for various high-Z nanoparticles to produce detectable contrast in X-ray imaging for small-size simulated lesions.
We are working on developing new mathematical and AI-based methods for parametric X-ray imaging to extract diseased tissue information such as the effective atomic number, electron density, photoelectric component, Compton component, virtual mono-energetic images, and material composition images to enhance the diagnostic information provided by spectral CT. We are also developing new nanoparticles for enhancing the contrast of cancer tissues in X-ray and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
Looking for MS and Ph.D. candidates to work in spectral CT imaging and AI.
