Dedicated to Improving Cancer Imaging and Patient Outcomes

About Us

Our lab at the Medical College of Wisconsin focuses on developing and validating advanced imaging techniques to improve the diagnosis, characterization, and treatment planning for brain and prostate cancers. Our research aims to bridge the gap between radiological imaging and pathological findings through radio-pathomic mapping, potentially improving clinical decision-making and patient outcomes in brain and prostate cancers through more accurate, non-invasive tumor characterization.

Key areas of our research include:

  1. Developing radio-pathomic maps that correlate MRI features with histological features in both brain and prostate cancers, allowing for non-invasive prediction of tumor characteristics.

  2. Validating MRI biomarkers through precise correlation with ex-vivo histology.

  3. Investigating tumor invasion patterns beyond conventional MRI-defined margins.

  4. Creating and validating imaging biomarkers to differentiate aggressive disease and predict patient recurrence.

  5. Developing machine and deep learning models to analyze MRI data for improved cancer detection and characterization.

  6. Collaborating in multi-site studies to validate quantitative imaging metrics across institutions.

Today we took a well needed lab outing to the Wisconsin State Fair! 🎡We visited the animals, laughed all day, and tried all the foods (even some bugs 🥴) A perfect day of bonding!!🐄
Today we took a well needed lab outing to the Wisconsin State Fair! 🎡We visited the animals, laughed all day, and tried all the foods (even some bugs 🥴) A perfect day of bonding!!🐄
Congrats to Savannah Duenweg on successfully defending her PhD dissertation in biophysics @mcwgradschool!!! 🎉🎓🍾🥂#medicalcollegeofwisconsin #MCW #biophysics #phd #prostatecancer #prostateprincess
Congrats to Savannah Duenweg on successfully defending her PhD dissertation in biophysics @mcwgradschool!!! 🎉🎓🍾🥂#medicalcollegeofwisconsin #MCW #biophysics #phd #prostatecancer #prostateprincess
Fundable score on a $4 million NCI R01 grant with our friends at UCSF!! 🧠 #braincancerresearch #radiopathomics #radiology
Fundable score on a $4 million NCI R01 grant with our friends at UCSF!! 🧠 #braincancerresearch #radiopathomics #radiology
Yesterday the LaViolette Lab and LaViolette/Hunt families came together for Strain for the Brain in honor of our patients 🎗️🩶 If you would like to donate still you can find our team at strainforthebrain.org #strainforthebrain
Yesterday the LaViolette Lab and LaViolette/Hunt families came together for Strain for the Brain in honor of our patients 🎗️🩶 If you would like to donate still you can find our team at strainforthebrain.org #strainforthebrain
Last week at ISMRM in Singapore, Sam Bobholz, Savannah Duenweg, and Peter LaViolette, presented current studies in brain and prostate cancer imaging. Savannah won First Place in the Trainee competition for the MR of Cancer Working Group! #ISMRM2024
Last week at ISMRM in Singapore, Sam Bobholz, Savannah Duenweg, and Peter LaViolette, presented current studies in brain and prostate cancer imaging. Savannah won First Place in the Trainee competition for the MR of Cancer Working Group! #ISMRM2024 #ISMRT2024 #ismrm #mri #magneticresonance #cancerimaging #btsm #medicalcollegeofwisconsin #radiopathomics #mcwcancercenter #cancerresearcher #pathomics #radiomics #radiology
Celebrating the start of conference season with a candy salad! 🍬
Today graduate students Savannah, Aleks, and Biprojit and staff Michael and Sam from our lab were able to present their work at the @ctsi_wi Southeast Wisconsin Data Science (SEAWINDS) Collaborative Research Symposium. Aleks also received honorable m
Today graduate students Savannah, Aleks, and Biprojit and staff Michael and Sam from our lab were able to present their work at the @ctsi_wi Southeast Wisconsin Data Science (SEAWINDS) Collaborative Research Symposium. Aleks also received honorable mention for her abstract submission. We are so proud of them for all they do! 🥼 #SEAWINDS #research #medicalcollegeofwisconsin
Today our team presented at the @medicalcollegeofwi Cancer Center Trainee Symposium 🔬 We are so proud of the work they have accomplished!
Today our team presented at the @medicalcollegeofwi Cancer Center Trainee Symposium 🔬 We are so proud of the work they have accomplished!
Congratulations to Samuel Bobholz, PhD for his publication “Radio-pathomic maps of glioblastoma identify phenotypes of non-enhancing tumor infiltration associated with bevacizumab treatment response” in Journal of Neuro-Oncology 🥼 This p
Congratulations to Samuel Bobholz, PhD for his publication “Radio-pathomic maps of glioblastoma identify phenotypes of non-enhancing tumor infiltration associated with bevacizumab treatment response” in Journal of Neuro-Oncology 🥼 This project had a huge jump start from our 2022 SPUR program students as well! Special thanks to @rms_foundation @the_abta @nationalcancerinstitute @strainforthebrain @froedtert.mcw for your help that made this research possible!
It was amazing to host a lab visit with the board members of the @rms_foundation. Thank you so much for the donation to our lab supporting ongoing research in #cancer, #cancerimaging, and #radiopathomics at @medicalcollegeofwi We got to wheel the #hy
It was amazing to host a lab visit with the board members of the @rms_foundation. Thank you so much for the donation to our lab supporting ongoing research in #cancer, #cancerimaging, and #radiopathomics at @medicalcollegeofwi We got to wheel the #hyperfine low field #mri into the lab for a quick demo!
Today we took a well needed lab outing to the Wisconsin State Fair! 🎡We visited the animals, laughed all day, and tried all the foods (even some bugs 🥴) A perfect day of bonding!!🐄 Congrats to Savannah Duenweg on successfully defending her PhD dissertation in biophysics @mcwgradschool!!! 🎉🎓🍾🥂#medicalcollegeofwisconsin #MCW #biophysics #phd #prostatecancer #prostateprincess Fundable score on a $4 million NCI R01 grant with our friends at UCSF!! 🧠 #braincancerresearch #radiopathomics #radiology Yesterday the LaViolette Lab and LaViolette/Hunt families came together for Strain for the Brain in honor of our patients 🎗️🩶 If you would like to donate still you can find our team at strainforthebrain.org #strainforthebrain Last week at ISMRM in Singapore, Sam Bobholz, Savannah Duenweg, and Peter LaViolette, presented current studies in brain and prostate cancer imaging. Savannah won First Place in the Trainee competition for the MR of Cancer Working Group! #ISMRM2024
Celebrating the start of conference season with a candy salad! 🍬
Today graduate students Savannah, Aleks, and Biprojit and staff Michael and Sam from our lab were able to present their work at the @ctsi_wi Southeast Wisconsin Data Science (SEAWINDS) Collaborative Research Symposium. Aleks also received honorable m Today our team presented at the @medicalcollegeofwi Cancer Center Trainee Symposium 🔬 We are so proud of the work they have accomplished! Congratulations to Samuel Bobholz, PhD for his publication “Radio-pathomic maps of glioblastoma identify phenotypes of non-enhancing tumor infiltration associated with bevacizumab treatment response” in Journal of Neuro-Oncology 🥼 This p It was amazing to host a lab visit with the board members of the @rms_foundation. Thank you so much for the donation to our lab supporting ongoing research in #cancer, #cancerimaging, and #radiopathomics at @medicalcollegeofwi We got to wheel the #hy

What is Radio-Pathomics?

Radio-pathomic mapping is an emerging field in medical imaging that combines radiomics and pathomics to create a more comprehensive understanding of diseases, particularly in cancer research and diagnosis. The goal of radio-pathomic mapping is to improve disease diagnosis and prognosis, enhance treatment planning and monitoring, provide more personalized medicine approaches, and identify new biomarkers for diseases. This technique is particularly promising in oncology, where it can help characterize tumors more comprehensively, potentially leading to better treatment strategies and outcomes.

In our lab, we combine multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging (MP-MRI) with digitized histological samples to create these maps. Clinical imaging and treatment history is acquired from patients who are consented to our studies. For our brain cancer tumor probability maps (TPMs), pre- and post-contrast T1-weighted images, FLAIR, and ADC are combined with large format samples taken at autopsy to detect tumor outside of contrast enhancement. For our prostate cancer radio-pathomic maps, T2-weighted images and ADC are combined with histo-morphometric features calculated from whole-mount prostate samples taken following radical prostatectomy. These maps give us a unique insights into the underlying pathology non-invasively.

Check out this video demonstrating our online digital pathology and radiology data repositories, OMERO and XNAT