Major General Paul David McLachlan

Commander, 1st Division and Deployable Joint Force Headquarters, Australian Army

• TRI research has the potential to change the lives of soldiers and improve the lives of their families
• The ADF has the intent, will and means to help soldiers but how best to treat the ~8.3 % of the ADF with PTSD and measure treatment outcomes remains a problem
• Imaging technology to look at brain chemistry of soldiers with PTSD and Blast injury will make a difference to soldiers and help to destigmatise the condition.

Dr Walter Busuttil

Medical Director, Combat Stress, UK

• COMBAT STRESS charity treats over 3500 veterans in the UK
• Veterans from more recent conflicts are likely to seek help more quickly than from previous conflicts. This reflects more education now around the effects of trauma
• COMBAT STRESS has a multidisciplinary approach integrating Psychiatrists, Psychologists, OT, Art Therapists, Nurses and support workers. They have pop in centres and 3 treatment clinics
• Offer a 6 week intensive program for PTSD, involves group therapy, individual therapy and group skills training. They have treated ~1400 people and with a very low drop out rate of only 3-4%

Dr David Crompton

Executive Dean, Metro South Addiction and Mental Health Services

• Veterans with PTSD usually have other physical, mental and family problems so it is often difficult to work out what is wrong in the mental health area.
• There is a difficultly of diagnosis as many symptoms for pain, PTSD, brain injury and schizo-affective disorders overlap.
• Neuroimaging has identified a number of biomarkers which may help these problems. MR spectroscopy has identified signatures for PTSD, depression and brain injury.
• This technology is useful not only for diagnosis but for monitoring the effectiveness of treatment.

Prof Carolyn Mountford

TRI CEO and Director of Research

• MR spectroscopy is giving insight into changes in brain chemistry associated with degeneration and disease. Particularly for PTSD and brain injury.
• Currently working towards a product that can be used routinely on MR scanners as part of a standard imaging protocol
• Bioinformatic analysis is critically important for the correct analysis of samples.
• There is now a capacity in development to assess front line defenders for PTSD and blast injury using 2D MR spectroscopy. There is an ability to distinguish features using spectroscopy that aren’t visable by current convential MR imaging.

Dr John Irvine 

Chief Scientist, Data Analytics, Draper Laboratories, Boston, USA

• From Draper Labs, Cambridge USA, works with data from Professor Mountford's PTSD research
• Methods for classifier development and validation of biomarkers identified by 2D MRS
• Machine learning tools such as Multiple Kernel Learning (MKL) are likely to improve classifier development
• Development of new methods of biomarker discovery from MR spectroscopy signals.
• Methods use data analysis of MRS to discover features of the MRS signal that will provide information to help diagnosis. The method uses unique signal processing methods that leads to classifiers that can distinguish between groups.
• Machine learning is being utilized to combine MRS data with other relevant measurements in order strengthen the classifiers

Prof Alberto Bizzi

Carlo Besta Neurological Institute Milan, Italy

• Using MRI to assess response in patients who receive immunotherapy for glioblastoma (GBM)
• Immunotherapy works best in tumours with lots of mutations, but in GBM there are not many mutations so immunotherapy is difficult
• MRI can be used to assess / differentiate progression of tumour versus pseudoprogression
• In addition to conventional imaging additional information can be gained by adding new methods such as Therapy Response Assessment Assay, Perfusion, Diffusion and MRS
• Timing of imaging after therapy is critical in order to make appropriate decisions as to whether therapy is effective 

Prof Ken Miles

Radiologist, PAH, Institute of Nuclear Medicine, University College London

• Adding value to PET/ MRI, not just diagnosis but prognosis and indication of best treatment
• PET / MRI is well suited to biomarker discovery
• Immune therapy only has long term benefits for a minority of patients so it is important to identify those who will benefit /respond early, so the non responders others can start alternative treatments.
• Biomarkers can indicate tumour inflammation, tumour heterogenetity and bone marrow response.

Prof Stephen Rose

Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO

• Using PET-MRI imaging to measure treatment response in Glioma
• The clinical problem is that high grade glioma has a poor prognosis, is highly infiltrative in the brain, very heterogenous and can have different genetic profiles in the same tumour.
• PET MRI can be used in a number of areas; to delineate tumour margins and guide biopsy, to monitor baseline and stratify before therapy and to give an early (pre 3 month) indication of surgical success. 

Michael Kean 

Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne 

• Using MRI-PET in paediatric oncology at RCH Melbourne
• This combination technology has enabled a good improvement to the imaging of cancers.
• With the MRI-PET scans have been streamlined and workflows improved.
• Most imagining can now be done in one session rater than over multiple scan sessions

Mark Sowerby 

Chief Entrepreneur, DSITI Queensland 

Dr Christine Williams 

Chief Scientist, DSITI Queensland 

Mike Molinari 

Investment Manager, Brandon Capital Partners 

Prof Kirby Vosburgh

Harvard Consortia for Improving Medicine with Innovation and Technology 

Experiences in Boston- gaining institutional and project success.

Elliot Smith

Co-founder MaxwellMRI 

Session speakers 

Prof Herb Kressel MD

Harvard Medical School 

Dr John Irvine 

Draper Laboratory, Boston 

Dr Gunter Hartel 

QIMR Berghofer