HYBRID will not only train the next-generation of medical imaging experts, it will also push current hybrid imaging modalities to the limits of their clinical and research potential and therefore identify new opportunities for future technology development.

Michel Koole, PhD

Graduated as a master in physics and trained as a certified medical radiation physicist, Michel Koole finished his PhD in 2002 at the University of Ghent (Belgium) with a doctoral thesis on quantitative SPECT imaging of the brain. After a postdoctoral fellowship, he worked for private software companies developing medical image analysis software such as Hermes Medical Solutions and Agfa Healthcare.

Beginning 2007, he joined the nuclear medicine department of UZ Gasthuisberg Leuven (Belgium), first as a medical physicist for the PET data analysis of contract research studies and at a later stage as a research expert in quantitative molecular imaging. Mid 2012, he joined the medical physics team of the nuclear medicine and molecular imaging department of the University Medical Center Groningen (the Netherlands), to strengthen research efforts in medical physics.

Since October 2014, he has been appointed as associate professor at the KU Leuven (Belgium). Research interests mainly focus on translational aspects of PET imaging and quantitative hybrid PET/CT and PET/MRI imaging, in particular PET kinetic modelling, univariate and multivariate analysis of brain PETMR imaging and multi-parametric lesion detection, segmentation and classification. He is also engaged in several (MR)PET-studies with leading pharmaceutical companies to support new drug development.