Get to know: Prof. Konstantin Nikolaou

Konstantin Nikolaou is looking for various imaging biomarkers in oncologic imaging.  These imaging biomarkers can be aimed at depicting certain tumor states, such as senescence, or delivering imaging information on the tumor microenvironment, e.g., pH-values, tumor perfusion and hypoxia, or describe heterogeneous tumor regions, such as areas of necrosis or apoptosis. Furthermore, he is researching on the potential of modern imaging modalities to predict therapy response, in patients undergoing immunotherapies or molecular therapies. 

Konstantin Nikolaou is pushing the limits of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) method development. The key concepts are built around digital health, i.e. imaging with artificial intelligence. The idea is to bring cellular diagnostics into imaging diagnostics for added clinical benefit. For this, he is using chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST), blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) MRI, perfusion and diffusion imaging. CEST may be used to image the acidity of the tumor microenvironment (pH-value), while BOLD can be used to study hypoxia within the tissue. Diffusion MRI can be used to image the integrity of the tumor, while perfusion tells us about the rate at which blood or another substance is transmitted to tissue. 

Konstantin Nikolaou has access to a photon-counting CT (Siemens Naeotom) and the Siemens Quadra PET/CT machine to perform research on digital pathology and translational artificial intelligence with multiparametric imaging. Konstantin Nikolaou and his team are open to collaborations for instance involving the correlation with metabolic or other metadata and we hope they enjoy their research within iFIT!