UCL-CNT Early Career Investigator Award in Neuroimaging Techniques 2021 presented to Arman Eshaghi

by Stefanie Rudrich
Head of Marketing (Brain Products)

Initiated in 2007, the “UCL-CNT Early Career Investigator Award in Neuroimaging Techniques” aims to acknowledge an exceptional contribution by a University College London’s student or staff member in the early stages of their career in the field of Neuroimaging. Brain Products and Brain Products UK are proud to sponsor the award, which includes a trophy, a certificate and a cheque for £1000.

The presentation of the 2021 award took place on August 2, 2022 at UCL’s Center for Neuroimaging Techniques (CNT) and could finally be held in person again!

This year’s winner is Arman Eshaghi, MD, PhD, of the Department of Neuroinflammation at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and Centre for Medical Image Computing (CMIC), Department of Computer Science. He received the award for the outstanding science he has produced over the past years.

UCL-CNT Early Career Investigator Award in Neuroimaging Techniques 2021 presented to Arman Eshaghi

CNT Chair, Prof. Louis Lemieux (left) and 2021 CNT Early Career Award winner, Arman Eshaghi (right). The presentation took place in Queen Square in central London, the site of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (founded in 1859, visible in the background) and UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology.

Arman has developed a range of techniques encompassing longitudinal models of disease progression in multiple sclerosis, model based and causal machine learning models. Arman’s primary contribution has been the development of regional MRI measures of change in MS as biomarkers in clinical trials. Recently he has applied unsupervised machine learning to large MRI data sets and introduced data-driven subtypes of multiple sclerosis. This may be used to predict treatment response and enable precision clinical trials in near future. Arman co-founded a UCL spin out in 2020 called Queen Square Analytics that applies latest advances in AI and machine learning to clinical trials of multiple sclerosis and currently employs 7 people.

About Arman Eshaghi

Excerpts from nomination statements:

Prof. Olga Ciccarelli, Head of the Department of Neuroinflammation: “I warmly support Dr Eshaghi’s application because he has been performing to an exceptional standard since the first day he joined our Department. Arman has led his technical work with significant independence of thought and potential for future leadership. His data-driven biologically defined subtypes of MS has the potential to revolutionise our understanding of MS, and in future, care for patients.”

Alan J Thompson, Garfield Weston Professor of Clinical Neurology & Neurorehabilitation, Dean of the UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences and UCL’s Pro-Provost for London: “Arman’s work is both innovative and insightful. He is exploring an important and fundamental issue in multiple sclerosis – the characterisation of patients in terms of behaviour and outcome, through the application of artificial intelligence to large imaging datasets. His results are provocative and have the potential to pave the way for a new approach to how we might categorise and describe patients both in clinical practice and in trial recruitment.”

On behalf of the whole Brain Products and Brain Products UK team, congratulations Arman on winning this award. We will for sure continue to follow your research and wish you all the best for your future!

Most recent articles

Selected references

[1] Eshaghi, A., Young, A., Wijertane, P., Prados, F., Arnold, D.L., Narayanan, S., Guttmann, C.R.G., Barkhof, F., Alexander, D.C., Thompson, A.J., Chard, D., Ciccarelli, O., 2021.
Identifying multiple sclerosis subtypes using unsupervised machine learning and MRI data.
Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23538-6

[2] Eshaghi, A., Prados, F., Brownlee, W. et al., 2018.
Deep grey matter volume loss drives disability worsening in multiple sclerosis.
Annals of Neurology. 83, 210-222. https://doi.org/10.1002/ana.25145

[3] Eshaghi, A., Marinescu, R.V., Young, A.L et al., 2018.
Progression of regional grey matter atrophy in multiple sclerosis.
Brain. 141, 1665-1677. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awy088

[4] Eshaghi A, Kievit, R, Prados, F et al. 2019.
Applying causal models to explore the mechanism of action of simvastatin in progressive multiple sclerosis.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). 116, 11020-11027. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.18189781162019.

[5] Eshaghi, A., Wottschel, V., Cortese, R. et al, 2016.
Gray matter MRI differentiates neuromyelitis optica from multiple sclerosis using random forest.
Neurology. 87, 2463–2470. https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000003395.