Lars Furenlid, PhD

Professor, Medical Imaging, Optical Sciences and Biomedical Engineering
Vice Chair, Research
Harry H. and Catherine C. Barrett Endowed Chair in Optical Sciences for Cancer Imaging

I am a tenured Professor with appointments in the Department of Medical Imaging and the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona, a joint appointment in Biomedical Engineering, and am also a member of the Arizona Cancer.  I am a physical chemist/physicist with 30 years of experience in molecular imaging and the development and application of advanced instrumentation for x-ray and gamma-ray imaging and spectroscopy, optical imaging and spectroscopy, and related methods for biomedical research.  I am a founding member and Contact Principal Investigator and Director of the NIH-P41-funded Center for Gamma-ray Imaging (CGRI), and served as project leader for the Center since its inception in 1999.    

 I have served as principal investigator, project leader, or co-investigator on federally- and industry-funded research projects including grants from the NCRR, NCI, and NIBIB institutes, and mentor graduate students working towards Masters and PhD degrees.  I have a broad physics, chemistry, and structural biology background, and teach graduate courses in the University of Arizona’s College of Optical Sciences on the physics and mathematics of imaging and spectroscopy.  I also co-teach a graduate course in the Biomedical Engineering/Cancer Biology programs on radiochemistry and molecular imaging methods in drug discovery.  I currently serve as co-chair of the NIH SBMIT(10) study section, which handles SBIR and STTR proposals in the biomedical imaging field.

I have special expertise in the techniques required to develop and apply advanced x-ray and gamma-ray detectors, and commissioned SPECT, PET, and CT imaging systems.  This includes the physics of scintillation and solid-state detectors, methods of optics, pulse-processing electronics, digital data acquisition, and data inversion/assessment/reconstruction with a variety of computational methods.   I work closely with and advise Masters and PhD students who carry out fundamental research and develop theory and hardware technologies as part of their thesis/dissertation projects.

See the YouTube feature about Dr. Furenlid's Innovation Day Honor.

Degrees
  • PhD: Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Other: Brookhaven National Laboratory

Select Publications

2021

Liu, Z., B. D. Gray, C. Barber, L. Wan, L. R. Furenlid, R. Liang, Z. Li, J. M. Woolfenden, K. Y. Pak, and D. R. Martin, "PEGylated and Non-PEGylated TCP-1 Probes for Imaging of Colorectal Cancer.", Mol Imaging Biol, 2021 Nov 29. PMID: 34845659

2020

Auer, B., K. Kalluri, D. Beenhouwer J, D. K, Z. N, K. P, F. L, and K. M, Reconstruction using Depth of Interaction Information of Curved and Flat Detector Designs for Quantitative Multi-Pinhole Brain SPECT., 2020.
K, K., A. B, Z. N, D. K, M. N, K. P, L. Furenlid, and K. M, Comparison of System Designs for AdaptiSPECT-C using Curved Detectors: Initial Findings, 2020.
N, Z., K. K, A. B, F. L, P. Kuo, and M. King, Exploratory research on impact of different data multiplexing schemes on activity recovery in cerebral SPECT imaging with AdaptiSPECT-C multi-pinhole brain-dedicated scanner., 2020.
Zeraatkar, N., K. S. Kalluri, B. Auer, A. Könik, T. J. Fromme, L. R. Furenlid, P. H. Kuo, and M. A. King, "Investigation of Axial and Angular Sampling in Multi-Detector Pinhole-SPECT Brain Imaging.", IEEE Trans Med Imaging, vol. 39, issue 12, pp. 4209-4224, 2020 Dec.
B, A., K. K, D. Beenhouwer J, D. K, Z. N, K. P, F. L, and K. M, Reconstruction using Depth of Interaction Information of Curved and Flat Detector Designs for Quantitative Multi-Pinhole Brain SPECT, 2020.
B, A., K. K, D. Beenhouwer J, Z. N, N. M, K. P, F. L, and K. M, Keel-Edge Height Selection for Improved Multi-Pinhole 123I Brain SPECT Imaging. J Nucl Med: Suppl 1, 61:573, 2020, 2020.

2019

Liu, Z., C. Barber, A. Gupta, L. Wan, Y-W. Won, L. R. Furenlid, Q. Chen, A. A. Desai, M. Zhao, D. A. Bull, et al., "Imaging assessment of cardioprotection mediated by a dodecafluoropentane oxygen-carrier administered during myocardial infarction.", Nucl Med Biol, vol. 70, pp. 67-77, 2019 03. PMCID: PMC6778684  PMID: 30772168
Caucci, L., Z. Liu, A. K. Jha, H. Han, L. R. Furenlid, and H. H. Barrett, "Towards continuous-to-continuous 3D imaging in the real world.", Phys Med Biol, vol. 64, issue 18, pp. 185007, 2019 09 18. PMCID: PMC7038643  PMID: 31470417

2018

Li, X., M. Ruiz-Gonzalez, and L. R. Furenlid, "An edge-readout, multilayer detector for positron emission tomography.", Med Phys, vol. 45, issue 6, pp. 2425-2438, 2018 Jun. PMCID: PMC5997541  PMID: 29635734
Ruiz-Gonzalez, M., V. Bora, and L. R. Furenlid, "Maximum-Likelihood Estimation of Scintillation Pulse Timing.", IEEE Trans Radiat Plasma Med Sci, vol. 2, issue 1, pp. 1-6, 2018 Jan. PMCID: PMC6007891  PMID: 29930991

2016

Brand, J. F., L. R. Furenlid, M. I. Altbach, J-P. Galons, A. Bhattacharyya, P. Sharma, T. Bhattacharyya, A. Bilgin, and D. R. Martin, "Task-based optimization of flip angle for fibrosis detection in T1-weighted MRI of liver.", J Med Imaging (Bellingham), vol. 3, issue 3, pp. 035502, 2016 Jul. PMCID: PMC4955011  PMID: 27446971