Ventio is proud to welcome Miguel Guevara in the QSM4SENIOR project!
Miguel joined the project-team QSM4SENIOR at the beginning of April as a specialist researcher. A strategic recruitment to support this EOSC-Life-funded project on which Ventio is a partner with Neurospin (CEA/CNRS/Univ. Paris-Saclay). Discover through this interview, his background and his vision of the project.
- Hello Miguel, can you introduce yourself in a few words and tell us more about your academic background and your experience in the research field?
My name is Miguel Guevara and I am from Chile. My adventure in the world of research started during my last semester of engineering studies. As a thesis for my biomedical engineering degree, the subject was part of a research project in neuroimaging of my supervisor. The subject captivated me so much that I decided to do a master’s degree (in engineering sciences) to explore it further. It was during the master’s that I had several interactions with my future PhD supervisor, through collaborations with NeuroSpin. This is what motivated me to take the step and come to France to do my PhD. After my thesis, I did a post-doctoral fellowship in a more clinically oriented field, where I was able to apply my knowledge to the study of psychiatric diseases.
- What are the fields in which you are particularly interested and in which you have specialized?
I am very interested in the field of biomedical imaging, especially neuroimaging, as I think the brain is a very mysterious organ. To this is added another of my great interests, which is programming and computer science, which allows me to venture into the creation of tools for the analysis of different types of data and how they can be used in a clinical field for the prevention or diagnosis of diseases. Specifically, I have been working for all these years in research developing tools for mapping brain connections in the superficial white matter, and more recently in researching differences between healthy and autistic subjects.
- When did you hear of NeuroSpin? What were your reasons for applying to join the QSM4SENIOR project?
One of the reasons I applied for this project is, as I mentioned earlier, my interest in the clinical application of neuroimaging. Another reason is the type of data I will be working with, as the analysis of it is very promising. Finally, the opportunity to work with a startup like Ventio, as their expertise allows me to see how a final product is generated and how a service is distributed to the community.
- Where will you work?
I will work mainly in NeuroSpin, close to Paris in the Ile-de-France region, but I will regularly travel to Marseille in order to work with the team of experts on site.
- What are your goals? Where will you start?
My main role is to be the link between NeuroSpin, Ventio, and EOSC-Life. More precisely, it is initially to retrieve the data that was acquired at NeuroSpin and to perform the necessary quality control and pre-processing in order to be able to analyze it a second step with an innovative biomarker called QSM (Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping) with great potential in the early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases. This information-rich data obtained at ultra-high magnetic field on NeuroSpin ultra-sensitive MRI imagers will be processed in the cloud to obtain QSM data related to iron in the brain. Another important goal of the project is to make this data available to the scientific community and to render the services interoperable within the EOSC-Life infrastructure. So let’s get this data talking!
- 3 words to describe the QSM4Senior project?
Innovative, partnership-based and promising.
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