About the Lab | Emory School of Medicine

man with short dark hair and glasses wearing dark blue suit and tie and light blue shirt staind in front of trees and tall buiding make of glass and granite and with an Emory sign — Dr. Carlo N. De Cecco, Lab Director

The Translational Laboratory for Cardiothoracic Imaging and Artificial Intelligence was founded in 2020 to perform advanced imaging research guided by four core beliefs.

Core Beliefs

Quantitative imaging will play an increasing role in medicine, combining medical and technical advances to improve and personalize the diagnosis, treatment, and prognostication of patients. In order to leverage quantitative imaging approaches, imaging protocols using high-end scanner technology should be utilized and optimized.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to push medical imaging forward with its unique ability to process large amounts of data and its inherent ability to recognize patterns, the cornerstone of medical imaging. For medicine to fully benefit from the potential AI has to offer, emphasis should be put on clinical validation, integration, and implementation, not simply on algorithm development.
Radiomics aims to extract a large number of quantitative features from medical images. These features, combined with AI, can assist clinicians with the diagnosis and prognosis of patients in a quantitative manner.
Technological developments, including quantitative imaging and AI use, require intensive collaboration between medical and technical experts in order to create innovations that can optimize clinical workflow and improve patient care.

Our ultimate goal is to bring novel imaging techniques, from both hardware and software perspectives, to clinical practice. We closely collaborate with clinical and technical partners both at Emory and other institutions, including industry, to achieve this. Our group is involved in developing and validating imaging analysis applications, designing and testing novel imaging protocols, and clinically implementing new technologies.

See Our Research

Meet the Team

The Translational Laboratory for Cardiothoracic Imaging and Artificial Intelligence has a dynamic team of scientists and clinicians, led by founder Dr. Carlo De Cecco, working at the intersection of technology and medicine.

Carlo N. De Cecco, MD, PhD Professor and Director

Carlo De Cecco, MD, PhD, FSCCT, FNASCI, FSABI, FESGAR is the lab's Director, as well as Professor and Division Director of Radiology and Biomedical Informatics, and a pioneer in cardiac imaging, multienergy CT imaging, and artificial intelligence. Dr. De Cecco's research interest is the development and application of advanced clinical imaging analysis and AI solutions to improve the understanding, diagnosis, and follow-up of cardiac disease. He is the author and editor of the Springer textbooks Artificial Intelligence in Cardiothoracic Imaging, MDCT and MRI of the Heart, Dual Energy CT in Oncology, and series editor of A-Z Notes in Radiological Practice and Reporting (5 books). He has authored or co-authored more than 244 peer-reviewed publications and 260 conference abstracts, and has given more than 100 invited lectures to national and international conferences. Dr. De Cecco`s work has been recognized with research awards from the American Heart Association, the North American Society of Cardiovascular Imaging, and the Society of Computed Body Tomography and Magnetic Resonance. For his full bio, click here.

man with short dark hair and glasses wearing dark blue suit and tie with light blue shirt

Marly van Assen, PhD Co-Director

Dr. van Assen is co-director of the Translational Laboratory for Cardiothoracic Imaging and Artificial Intelligence, head of CT and AI research, and an assistant professor in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences. She earned an MSc in medical sensing and stimulation from Technische Universiteit Twente in Enschede, Netherlands, a six-year educational program that combines medical and technical topics focusing on optimizing the use of technology in clinical practice, and a PhD from University of Groningen in the Netherlands focused on new imaging technologies for cardiovascular imaging. Dr. van Assen specializes in developing new imaging techniques for cardiothoracic imaging and the application of machine learning to improve cardiothoracic imaging workflows. She is the recipient of the 2021 American Heart Association Young Investigator Award presented by the North American Society of Cardiothoracic Imaging.

person with long blond hair standing in front of white wall with arms crossed over a green jacket and black blouse

Gabrielle Gershon Medical Student

Gabrielle is a medical student in the Emory University School of Medicine. After receiving a BS degree in biomedical engineering from Georgia Tech, she spent two years working as a software engineer at Epic (EHR) on the EpicCare Inpatient Clinical Documentation team in Madison, WI. She is involved in creating our Emory CT cardiac imaging registry and is interested in using AI for medical data interpretation.

smiling person with long brown hair and freckles wearing a dark jacket over a white blouse

Cherry Kim, MD, PhD Visiting Scholar

As a visiting scholar, Dr. Kim brings expertise in cardiothoracic imaging and the application of artificial intelligence in radiology. She is mainly interested in automatic analysis of cardiothoracic imaging with AI as well as the clinical implications of AI. She earned her medical degree from Korea University College of Medicine and her PhD from the University of Ulsan College of Medicine. After completing radiology residency and a fellowship in the Department of Radiology and the Research Institute of Asan Medical Center in Seoul, South Korea, Dr. Kim spent the next 10 years specializing in the field of cardiothoracic imaging. She currently is an associate professor in the Department of Radiology at Korea University Ansan Hospital.

smiling person with long black hair pulled back and wearing a blue and white striped blouse

two smiling men, one wearing glasses, flanking a woman with dark hair all standing behind a bench on which are seated a woman with blond hair and glasses and a man with dark hair and glasses

Alumni

The lab offers a rich opportunity for training and experience in cardiothoracic imaging research for residents and fellows. Meet those who have leveraged their time with us to launch their careers.

Caterina Beatrice Monti, MD, PhD

Dr. Caterina Beatrice Monti is a radiology resident at the University of Milan, Italy, and also works with the Department of Radiology at IRCCS Policinico San Donato. She earned her PhD in integrative biomedical research from the University of Milan in 2021.

Emanuele Muscoguiri, MD

Dr. Muscogiuri earned his MD degree at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart – Rome. He started his radiology training at Ospedale Sant’Andrea – “Sapienza” University of Rome. Throughout his residency program, he had the opportunity to deepen his training in oncologic and cardiothoracic imaging. He additionally completed a cardiac MRI and CT fellowship at KU Leuven. During his fellowship with the lab at Emory in 2021, his main research focus was on artificial intelligence applied to cardiothoracic imaging.

Giovanni Tessarin, MD

Dr. Tessarin is completing his last year of radiology residency at University of Padova, Italy, where he earned his MD degree in 2016. Dr. Tessarin's main interests are cardiothoracic imaging with a special focus on Cardiac CT and MRI. He was a visiting fellow in the Fall of 2021 with a primary research focus on artificial intelligence applied to Radiology, specifically COVID-19 and cardiac imaging.

smiling man with high forehead and closely cropped dark hair and facial stubble wearing round glasses and light blue button down shirt

Carlotta Onnis, MD

Dr. Onnis is a radiology resident at the University of Cagliari in Italy, where she also earned her MD. She served as a visiting fellow at the Translational Lab for Cardiothoracic Imaging and AI for the year 2023/2024. Her research focus has been on AI applications for cardiac imaging, particularly quantitative analysis of coronary artery plaque and its clinical implications. She will graduate residency in 2025 and will pursuit the alternate pathway for American Board of Radiology certification at Emory University, starting July 2025.

smiling person with long brown hair wearing round black spectacles and a royal blue jacket over a white blouse and a gold necklace

Back to Lab Home Page