7079-Wu, Yu-Chien
Faculty

Yu-Chien Wu, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Radiology & Imaging Sciences

Address
355 West 16th Street,
Goodman Hall, Suite 4100

Indianapolis, IN 46202
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Bio

I joined IUSM as Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences and became a tenured Associate Professor in 2019.  I received a MD degree and license in Taiwan.  Later, I earned my PhD in Medical Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006.

While I am a Magnetic Resonance Imaging Physicist by training, my research focuses on diffusion physics in biologic system using diffusion MRI. I started to work on diffusion MRI extensively in my graduate education. I continued to advance in this field independently at Dartmouth College (2009-2013) and currently at Indiana University School of Medicine.

Titles & Appointments

  • Associate Professor of Radiology & Imaging Sciences
  • Education
    2006 PhD University of Wisconsin-Madison
    2001 RES Radiology Residency, Year 1, Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital, Taiwan
    2000 MD Kaohsiung Medical University
    1994 BS National Taiwan University
  • Research

    The goal of my research is to understand diffusion physics in biological systems and utilize diffusion MRI to elucidate disease mechanisms, facilitate early diagnoses, and identify optimal treatments.  To achieve this goal, my research program focuses on developing quantitative microstructure imaging techniques, assessing the sensitivities of these microstructural measurements in neurologic disorders of the human brain, and validating their specificities with histological analysis of animal models and human post-mortem tissue.  The significance of my research is applicable to any disorder in which alterations of diffusion play an important role in detecting the underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms.   

    My earlier work focused on developing advanced and efficient diffusion encoding with fixed diffusion time for clinical MRI scanners.  In 2007, we proposed Hybrid Diffusion Imaging (HYDI) with 5 diffusion-weighting shells and high-angular-resolution diffusion encoding with 120 directions. Using the HYDI acquisition, I initially studied the microstructural changes of white matter inferred by the q-space analytic approach on a population of normal aging. Recently, my lab and I continued to investigate axonal density and orientation dispersion information of normal aging using diffusion compartmental modeling.

    My other research direction is to break the barriers of diffusion imaging in medicine. To this end, I started developing affordable high-resolution diffusion imaging and optimizing time-varying diffusion MRI pulse sequences tailored for the human brain in clinical scanners.  In 2016, we proposed a fast high-resolution diffusion MRI technique, rotating single-shot acquisition (RoSA).

    In addition to Aging and Alzheimer’s disease, mild traumatic brain injury is also one of my research interests.  We study microstructural changes of brain white matter in mild traumatic brain injury and sport related brain injury (i.e., concussion) in college athletes. My laboratory is also involved in studies to understand the underlying micro-mechanisms of multiple sclerosis and to identify its imaging biomarkers.

  • Professional Organizations
    Alzheimer's Association
    International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM)
    Radiological Society of North America (RSNA)
  • Board Certifications
    American Board of Radiology - Medical Physics*

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