During National Postdoc Appreciation Week, the UCSF Center for Intelligent Imaging (ci2) asked postdoctoral scholars to share more information about their work, including Rupsa Bhattacharjee, PhD. Dr. Bhattacharjee joined the Musculoskeletal and Imaging Research Group at UCSF in 2021 as post-doctoral fellow to study joint diseases with compositional MRI techniques combined with machine learning tools.
In her work, Dr. Bhattacharjee is exploring MRI imaging, image processing, deep-learning and biomechanical tools combined with statistical methods to analyze novel associations between bilateral biomarkers such as: bone shape, cartilage thickness, muscle health, metabolic uptakes from simultaneous PET-MRI, T1Rho and T2 relaxation parameters in a spectrum of hip and knee osteoarthritis disease variations.
Parallelly, Dr. Bhattacharjee works in modifying, utilizing, and developing deep-learning algorithms for joint anomaly detection, segmentation, and task-based reconstruction from under sampled MRI k-space. Dr. Bhattacharjee is also currently focused in exploring the technical feasibility of utilizing new generation low-field MRI scanners in musculoskeletal joint and lung pulmonary pathology.
"The best part about my work is collaborating with a variety of people in the lab, grad-students, radiologists, physical therapy/rehabilitation experts and data-scientists," says Dr. Bhattacharjee. "In my typical everyday routine at UCSF, I loves to spend time developing codes exploring the multifaceted power of MRI as a diagnostic modality."
Dr. Bhattacharjee envisions her research would be helpful for the following:
- Understanding the dynamics of how unilateral/isolated osteoarthritis (OA) and associated Gait pattern changes can pose risk to the otherwise normal appearing joint
- Subsequently identifying strategies to suggest modifiable lifestyle changes which can, in long run, prevent incidence of joint severity.
"Findings from this research can then also be used for identifying the right candidates for appropriate clinical trials," says Dr. Bhattacharjee. "My work focuses on transitioning quantitative MRI tools into low-field MRI can be of value-added-impact in terms of time, resource, scanner-accessibility, and value for money."
Check back with us throughout the week to hear more from UCSF ci2 postdoctoral scholars and researchers.
