Pediatric Molecular Imaging Team

Mairead Barroso, MA

As an administrative assistant and research administrator I work with the Daldrup-Link Lab to facilitate grant proposals and management. I also coordinate with Dr. Daldrup-Link and her lab members to manage ongoing and upcoming studies ensuring that they are compliant with university and sponsor policies.

| Phone: (650) 725-2548

Laura J. Pisani, PhD

As an MRI Physicist, I support the Daldrup-Link lab in development of non-invasive MRI techniques and clinical data analysis for in vivo diagnosis of immune responses to solid organ transplants. I provide monthly Introductory MRI seminars; hands-on training for MRI, micro-PET, fluorescence imaging; and help optimize experimental design and image data analysis.

| Phone: (650) 498-7865 | Stanford Profile

Edwin Chang, PhD

I previously worked at Geron Corporation (Menlo Park, California) where I studied the mechanism of cellular immortalization and cellular aging with the goal to develop new therapies against cancer. I joined Stanford University in 2002 and the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS) in 2009, where I explored the applicability of various modalities (PET, BLI, CT, MRI, US) for many projects related to cancer under the leadership of Sanjiv Sam Gambhir. Most recently, I joined the Daldrup-Link lab where I continue to investigate new cell therapies for the treatment of glioblastoma with multi-modality imaging techniques. Since, July 2020, I have been appointed Director of the Canary Core Preclinical Imaging Facility at the Canary Center of Stanford, Stanford University.

Vidyani Suryadevara

Dr. Suryadevara is a Bioengineer having a breadth of experiences across different scientific disciplines including pulmonary diseases, Alzheimer's disease and the musculoskeletal disorders, wherein her research projects involved identifying new therapeutic targets and developing imaging modalities for early diagnosis of the disease, thus eventually improving the quality of life in patients. Currently, she is part of the SENET consortium at Stanford wherein she leads the preclinical studies focusing on developing a novel noninvasive multimodality imaging approach to detect senescence in arthritis models.

Dr. Suryadevara is also a Global Health Faculty Fellow in the Centre for Innovation in Global Health and serves as a mentor for the Leadership Education in Advancing Diversity Program.

Elizabeth Hawk, MD, PhD

Dr. Hawk is a Nuclear Medicine Physician and Neuroradiologist. Following an undergraduate degree in Molecular Cell Biology at UC Berkley, Dr. Hawk completed a master's in medical radiation physics and a PhD in Neuroscience at The Chicago Medical School (RFUMS). She then completed her medical doctorate, residency and dual fellowship requirements at the University of Southern California (USC) and is now dual board certified in Nuclear and Molecular Medicine as well as Radiology. Currently, Dr. Hawk’s research focuses on artificial intelligence applications in patient centered care and the ethical challenges in artificial intelligence adaptation.

She holds several national leadership positions in organized medicine and is a proud member of the RADequal board, promoting diversity in medical informatics. Dr. Hawk is also faculty for the ACR Radiology Leadership Institute.

Lisa Adams, MD, PhD

As a radiologist and clinical scientist, I am interested in the development, translation and clinical validation of new medical imaging techniques. My research interests revolve around vascular and oncologic imaging, with particular emphasis on the study of novel MRI techniques, radiomics, and computer vision. I conducted research in molecular MRI and investigated the development and evaluation of methods to improve visualization of the extracellular matrix. I also evaluated quantitative MRI sequences, particularly with respect to their suitability for renal and prostate oncologic imaging, and applied methods from the fields of radiomics and artificial intelligence to improve the diagnostic value of radiologic imaging.

Fabrizio Pisani, MD

Dr. Pisani is a physician-scientist who recently joined the Molecular Imaging Program in the Department of Radiology. He coordinates and analyzes MR imaging studies of osteosarcomas in animal models and in patients.

Lucia Baratto, MD

I am interested in novel clinical imaging technologies for cancer staging and re-staging, such as whole body diffusion weighted MRI and PET/MR imaging, in conjunction with applications of iron oxide nanoparticles as contrast agents. My current projects involve comparisons of different whole body imaging techniques for therapy monitoring in pediatric patients with malignant tumors and investigations of chemotherapy-induced tissue injuries in pediatric cancer survivors.

Mohammad Javad Hajpour, PhD

I work as a research scientist in the Department of Radiology at Stanford University. My research interest focuses on the nanoparticle design strategies for targeted delivery of drug and/or diagnostic agents to tissues/cells of interest, immunotherapy of cancer, molecular imaging of cancer, regenerative medicine, protein-nanoparticle interaction and protein corona formation, protein/peptide fibrillation, and neurodegenerative diseases. My goal is to develop the nanotechnology-based approaches for diagnosis and treatment of diseases and address the challenges of diverse application of nanomedicine. Currently at Stanford, I am working on the development of new imaging tools for arthritis diagnosis.

Dilyana Mangarova, PhD

I am a veterinarian interested in laboratory animal medicine and translational molecular imaging. I received my PhD in 2022 in molecular imaging of cardiovascular disease from the Freie University of Berlin in cooperation with the Charite University Hospital in Berlin, Germany. During this time, I worked on the development and assessment of novel imaging biomarkers for atherosclerosis and abdominal aortic aneurysms. My research portfolio involves magnetic resonance imaging, magnetic resonance elastography and magnetic particle imaging. As a postdoctoral researcher in the Daldrup-Link lab, I am focusing on imaging senescence in the context of osteoarthritis and developing a theranostic approach for characterizing glioblastoma.

Kerem Nernekli, MD

Dr. Nernekli has a wide-ranging research background encompassing molecular imaging and interventional radiology. Currently, he investigates a novel radiotracer and a novel activatable Gd-based contrast agent for detection of senescence in large animal models with PET/MRI. Furthermore, Dr. Nernekli investigates the delivery of ferumoxytol and ferumoxytol-based theranostics to brain tumors with MRI and two-photon microscopy.

Fatima Ashfaq, MBBS

I am a Doctor of Medicine currently working in the Molecular Imaging program at Stanford (MIPS). My research interest focuses on the field of molecular and cellular imaging, MRI contrast agents, and nanotechnology.

Shashi Singh, MBBS

My research interests include studying the association between structural and molecular imaging findings and developing artificial intelligence models for the efficient diagnosis, staging, and management of malignancies and inflammatory disorders. Some of my specific interests include PET/CT and PET/MRI, theranostics, and dosimetry. Besides working on PET radiotracers like FDG and NaF, I am highly fascinated with ferumoxytol-enhanced MRI, and newly emerging theranostics agents such as FAPI, PSMA, and DOTATATE.

Zahra Shokri, MD

I am an MD, and my goal in novel cellular and molecular imaging is to develop novel in vivo imaging approaches to visualize, characterize and quantify molecular and cellular processes involved in developing cancers. I intend to develop a method for determining tumor profiles, selecting patients for individualized immunotherapy, and monitoring their results. I hope cancer to become history.

Wei Wu, PhD

I am interested in linking the fields of cell biology and imaging sciences to advance our understanding of human health and disease. I want to explore and uncover fundamental mechanisms that affect the physiology and function of specific cell populations in living organisms.

Ali Rashidi, MD

I am interested in musculoskeletal imaging. One major concern for successful outcomes of stem cell therapies is the cell fate after implantation. My ultimate goal for stem cell research is to develop clinically applicable, non-invasive and repeatable imaging approaches which can be used for long-term tracking of transplanted stem cells. I also work on development and testing of nanoparticles for clinical imaging of bone metastases with MRI and PET.

Ching-Hsin Huang, PhD

I am a material scientist and received my Ph.D. from UC San Diego while exploring the delivery of immuno-modulators and viral genes. My current research interests include developing nanotechnology to overcome the limitations of small-molecular therapeutics and navigate therapeutic drugs across biological barriers, and utilizing multimodal imaging to monitor enzyme-activatable theranostic (combined diagnostic and therapeutic) nanoparticles.

Raheleh Roudi, PhD

I am a research scientist in the Department of Radiology at Stanford University. I worked as an Assistant Professor at the Iran University of Medical Sciences, Iran from 2015 to 2019, before coming to the United States. During this time, I worked on several projects which have led to successful collaborations with the Karolinska Institute; Charite University Hospital in Berlin; Oslo University Hospital; National University of Singapore; Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and University of Brescia, among other internationally recognized institutions. I was a visiting scientist at the University of Texas at San Antonio and then appointed as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Minnesota for one year, before joining Stanford University in 2022. At Stanford, I investigate novel immunotherapies for osteosarcomas with ferumoxytol-MRI and PET/MRI. My research interest focuses on molecular imaging, molecular oncology and immunotherapies of solid tumors. I published more than 40 peer reviewed scientific manuscripts thus far.

Shakthi Kumaran Ramasamy, MD

I am interested in clinical and translational research to investigate new immunotherapies for osteosarcoma and nanoparticle labelled CAR-T cell therapy for GBM. Therapeutic CAR-T cells face a distinct set of hurdles in the therapy of solid tumors, that does not present in hematopoietic malignancy. My goal is to establish real-time clinical-imaging techniques for image-guided immunotherapy of CAR-T cells and regionally deliver them to the tumor microenvironment through a catheter or direct needle-based injection approach and get those cells where they needed to be! I also work on PET/MR imaging of stem cell transplants in arthritic joints and novel whole-body PET/MR imaging studies for monitoring cancer therapy response in pediatric cancer patients.

Manoj Kumar, PhD

My curiosity is in visualizing the biological characteristics of malignant tumors using non-invasive imaging approaches such as PET and MRI. These imaging modalities enable imaging-guided treatment identifying the molecular signatures of cancer, thus individually tailoring treatment plans for patients. During my doctoral training, I developed a PET imaging approach to evaluate endocrine therapy responses in breast cancer. Since then, I have expanded my research interest to a variety of other solid cancers, including prostate cancer and bone sarcomas. My current research focuses on assessing immunotherapy response by visualizing tumor immune markers. The ultimate goals are to develop new PET and MR imaging probes and more effective immunotherapy approaches for image-guided cancer therapies. To achieve this, I am presently employing antibody-based PET imaging and therapeutic strategies to modulate immune functions and restore the suppressed immune response against cancer cells. I collaborate with interdisciplinary scientists focused on translating preclinical findings into clinical studies. My long-term goal is to be an independent translational scientist focused on developing new imaging and therapeutic strategies in cancer.

Amir H. Sarrami, MD

I am a radiologist interested in clinical applications and integration of machine learning models with medical imaging studies of cancer. On the clinical side of the Daldrup-Link lab, I am working on PET/MR imaging of lymphoma patients to develop an artificial intelligence algorithm that can assess the treatment response in children with lymphoma.

Wipawee Morakote, MD

I am a visiting scholar in the Daldrup-Link lab at Stanford Radiology. I am a pediatric radiologist from the Chiang Mai University, Thailand. My chief interest is to learn about advanced imaging techniques for pediatric oncology applications. I am currently observing and participating in research projects that investigate the role of advanced MRI and whole body PET/MR technologies for the diagnosis and long-term follow up of cancer in children with the to improve the diagnostic accuracy and treatment monitoring of pediatric cancers.

Tina Ho

I am a software engineer and visiting student in the Daldrup-Link lab. I plan to pursue a medical degree in the near future and am exploring ways that I can utilize my tech skills to bridge the tech gap in the healthcare field. I am interested in learning more about the cross-section of medicine and machine learning — especially in the context of medical imaging to help diagnose patients.