Team Quantum Heart Wins NIH Prize for Innovation

https://datascience.nih.gov/tools-and-analytics/quantum-computing-new-frontiers-biomedical-research-innovation-lab Last December, I had the incredible opportunity to be part of something truly special. The NIH Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) gathered 27 of us from wildly different fields for a five-day Innovation Lab. The goal? To answer a question that sounds like science fiction: How can quantum computing solve today’s most complex biomedical challenges? The room buzzed with a vibrant mix of quantum physicists, computer scientists (both quantum and traditional computing), computational physicists, computational biologists, data scientists, and biomedical researchers. For five intense days, we were immersed in a whirlwind of collaboration, brainstorming, and problem-solving. The energy was electric as we united to bridge the gap between our disciplines and forge new paths for the future of medicine. ...

August 20, 2025 · 2 min · 406 words · Wookjin Choi

AI-Powered Auto-Segmentation in Liver Cancer Therapy

We’re excited to share our latest work published in Technology in Cancer Research & Treatment: “Deep Learning-Based Auto-Segmentation for Liver Yttrium-90 Selective Internal Radiation Therapy” — a collaboration between Jun Li, Rani Anne, and myself. This study introduces a deep learning (DL) model built on the 3D U-Net architecture, developed to automatically segment the liver in CT scans for patients undergoing Y-90 Selective Internal Radiation Therapy (SIRT). Accurate liver segmentation is a critical step for calculating Y-90 dosage, traditionally done manually — a time-consuming and subjective process. ...

April 8, 2025 · 1 min · 142 words · Wookjin Choi

The Nexus featured our cardiac PET radiomics study

Jefferson Investigates: Artificial Intelligence and Heart Disease — The Nexus https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06-machine-lung-cancer-scans-heart.html

June 27, 2024 · 1 min · 11 words · Wookjin Choi

Shining a Light: Unveiling Cardiac Risks Using PET Imaging in Lung Cancer Radiotherapy

Our study on cardiac toxicity in lung cancer treatment is now featured in a JCO CCI editorial. Discoveries that could change patient care are on the horizon. Stay tuned! #CardiacToxicity#LungCancer#Innovation Shining a Light: Unveiling Cardiac Risks Using Positron Emission Tomography Imaging in Lung Cancer Radiotherapy

April 14, 2024 · 1 min · 45 words · Wookjin Choi

Exploring published and novel pre-treatment CT and PET radiomics to stratify risk of progression among early-stage non-small cell lung cancer patients treated with stereotactic radiation

Maria Thor 1,4, Kelly Fitzgerald 2,4, Aditya Apte 1, Jung Hun Oh 1, Aditi Iyer 1, Otasowie Odiase 2, Saad Nadeem 1, Ellen D. Yorke 1, Jamie Chaft 3, Abraham J. Wu 2, Michael Offin 3, Charles B Simone II 2, Isabel Preeshagul 3, Daphna Y. Gelblum 2, Daniel Gomez 2, Joseph O. Deasy 1, Andreas Rimner 2 1Department of Medical Physics, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center 2Department of Radiation Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center 3Department of Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center ...

November 7, 2023 · 2 min · 271 words · Wookjin Choi

Deep Learning Segmentation for Accurate GTV and OAR Segmentation in MR-Guided Adaptive Radiotherapy for Pancreatic Cancer Patients

AAPM 2023, ASTRO 2023

October 7, 2023 · 1 min · 4 words · Wookjin Choi

Novel Functional Radiomics for Predicting Cardiotoxicity in Lung Cancer Radiotherapy using Cardiac FDG-PET Uptake

Our paper “Novel Functional Radiomics for Prediction of Cardiac Positron Emission Tomography Avidity in Lung Cancer Radiotherapy” has been published in JCO CCI. This research work delves into an innovative approach to predict clinical cardiac assessment using functional imaging. Abstract: Traditional methods for evaluating cardiotoxicity primarily focus on radiation doses to the heart. However, functional imaging offers the potential to enhance early prediction of cardiotoxicity in lung cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy. In this context, Fluorine-18 (18F) fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) imaging plays a crucial role. This study aims to develop a radiomics model that predicts clinical cardiac assessment using 18F-FDG PET/CT scans before thoracic radiation therapy. ...

September 11, 2023 · 2 min · 327 words · Wookjin Choi

2023 Accepted/Invited Annual Meeting abstracts

AAPM Annual Meeting (Houston, TX • July 23 ‒ 27, 2023) Novel Functional Delta-Radiomics for Predicting Overall Survival in Lung Cancer Radiotherapy Using Cardiac FDG-PET Uptake Wookjin Choi, Yevgeniy Vinogradskiy Interactive ePoster Discussions: Sunday, July 23, 2023: 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM, GRBCC, Exhibit Hall | Forum 6 SU-300-IePD-F6-4 Novel Functional Delta-Radiomics for Predicting Overall Survival in Lung Cancer Radiotherapy Using Cardiac FDG-PET Uptake Deep Learning Segmentation for Accurate GTV and OAR Segmentation in MR-Guided Adaptive Radiotherapy for Pancreatic Cancer Patients Wookjin Choi, Hamidreza Nourzadeh, Yingxuan Chen, Christopher G. Ainsley, Vimal K. Desai, Alexander A. Kubli, Yevgeniy Vinogradskiy, Maria Werner-Wasik, Adam Mueller, and Karen E. Mooney PO-GePV-D-50 Deep Learning Segmentation for Accurate GTV and OAR Segmentation in MR-Guided Adaptive Radiotherapy for Pancreatic Cancer Patients ...

May 8, 2023 · 3 min · 488 words · Wookjin Choi

Longitudinal CBCT radiomics in Lung Cancer supported by Varian Medical Systems Inc.

Varian will support my research project entitled “Longitudinal CBCT radiomics analysis for lung cancer radiotherapy response and prognosis prediction” with $230,000 over 2 years. This is the first research grant from Varian to the Department of Radiation Oncology, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. This project can potentially impact the clinical practice of lung cancer patients by using standard imaging modalities (CBCT and 4D-CBCT) to provide early prediction of prognosis and toxicity. ...

February 10, 2023 · 2 min · 233 words · Wookjin Choi

Clinically-Interpretable Radiomics

MICCAI'22 Paper | CMPB'21 Paper | CIRDataset This library serves as a one-stop solution for analyzing datasets using clinically-interpretable radiomics (CIR) in cancer imaging (https://github.com/choilab-jefferson/CIR). The primary motivation for this comes from our collaborators in radiology and radiation oncology inquiring about the importance of clinically-reported features in state-of-the-art deep learning malignancy/recurrence/treatment response prediction algorithms. Previous methods have performed such prediction tasks but without robust attribution to any clinically reported/actionable features (see extensive literature on the sensitivity of attribution methods to hyperparameters). This motivated us to curate datasets by annotating clinically-reported features at the voxel/vertex level on public datasets (using our published advanced mathematical algorithms) and relating these to prediction tasks (bypassing the “flaky” attribution schemes). With the release of these comprehensively-annotated datasets, we hope that previous malignancy prediction methods can also validate their explanations and provide clinically-actionable insights. We also provide strong end-to-end baselines for extracting these hard-to-compute clinically-reported features and using these in different prediction tasks. ...

June 29, 2022 · 5 min · 1002 words · Wookjin Choi