Universität Zürich

The invention relates to a system (200) and a method (300) for reducing metal-induced imaging artifacts in MRI, said method (300) comprising: - acquiring (301) an MRI image of a biological object comprising a metal part, said MRI image representing said biological object in an image domain; - identifying or defining (302), within said MRI image, a Region of Interest (ROI) comprising a metal-induced artifact resulting from said metal part; - applying (303), at least to said ROI, a wave-like transformation from the image domain into a wave-like domain, wherein said wave-like transformation is configured for breaking down spatial information comprised in said ROI into oscillations characterized by oscillation components, and resulting in at least one transformed image encoding information about the metal-induced artifact; - filtering (304) each transformed image encoding said information about the metal-induced artifact, wherein said filtering is configured for removing metal-induced artifact information from the concerned transformed image, resulting in a filtered transformed image; - applying (305), to the filtered transformed image, an inverse wave-like transformation from the wave-like domain into the image domain, resulting into a filtered image; - outputting (306) the filtered image.

The present invention is directed to a method for the continuous flow preparation of oligonucleotide compounds using solid-phase flow chemistry implemented in two separated process chambers in continuous flow communication, wherein the first process chamber is an activation chamber (upstream chamber) for activating a nucleotide compound, and the second process chamber is a coupling chamber (downstream chamber) for coupling the activated nucleotide compound from the activation chamber to a solid-phase support (SPS)-bound mono-, di-, tri-, oligo- or polynucleotide compound, wherein both process chambers comprise a fluid-permeable divider for separating the activation chamber (a) from the coupling chamber (b) and its solid-phase bound mono-, di-, tri-, oligo- or polynucleotides. The present invention further relates to an alternative method for the continuous flow preparation of oligonucleotide compounds using solid-phase flow chemistry, wherein the 5'-hydroxy of a mono-, di-, tri-, oligo- or polynucleotide bound to a solid phase support (SPS) is activated and reacted with the 3'-hydroxy of a nucleotide to prepare a di-, tri, oligo- or polynucleotide compound in continuous flow preparation.

The invention relates to a system (100) and method (200) for generating an MR-based-virtual X-Ray, hereafter MRXR, image, said method (200) comprising: - acquiring (201) an initial set of one or several MRI images, wherein the MRI images comprised within said initial set are configured for enabling one or several 3D representations of a biological object; - processing (202) said one or several MRI images for increasing, notably for each of said one or several images, a visibility of each image region, if any, that represents a bone of the biological object - called hereafter "bone-region" - with respect to a visibility of another region that represents tissue of the biological object that is free of bone - called hereafter "non-bone region", and creating an image input set comprising the processed one or several images; - feeding (203) an improved bone visibility - hereafter IBV - 3D image into a cone-beam projection algorithm configured for performing an X-Ray-like projection, wherein the IBV 3D image is obtained from the processed one or several images of said input set, and wherein the cone-beam projection algorithm is configured for outputting said MRXR image; - providing (204) the outputted MRXR image via an interface.

The invention relates to a method and a computer program for localizing particle impact events (21) on an array detector (10), the array detector (10) comprising a plurality of detection elements (11), the method comprising the steps of: - acquiring at least one input image (20) indicative of a signal of one or more particle impact events (200), each particle impact event (200) extending over a plurality of input image pixels (21), wherein each particle impact event (200) is caused by an impact of a single particle on a single detection element (11) of the detector array (10), thereby generating a signal cloud (100) extending into neighboring detection elements (11), - inputting each of the at least one input image (20) to a trained neural network (40) that is configured to determine an output image (30) having output image pixels (31) associated to the input image pixels (21), and to determine for each output image pixel (31) an associated particle number (32) corresponding to a number of particles associated to the output image pixel (31), wherein each output image pixel (32) having an associated particle number (32) greater than zero, is assigned as a particle impact location (102) of an impact event (200), - outputting from the trained neural network (40) the one or more particle impact locations (102).

System (100), method and computer program product for multi-view image registration between X-ray images and CT scans. A 3D sliced CT model (10) representing a preoperative anatomical structure of a patient is received, which comprises a 3D mesh with edges and vertices defining surfaces (10-c1, 10-c2, 10-c3) of a plurality of anatomical sub-structures (10-1, 10-2, 10-3) of said anatomical structure. Co-calibrated 2D X-ray images (20-1, 20-2) of said anatomical structure obtained under different viewing angles are received. In each X-ray image (20-1p, 20-2p), sub-structure contours (20-1c1, 20-1c2, 20-1c3, 20-2c1, 20-2c2, 20-2c3) of respective anatomical sub-structures are extracted using a semantic contour segmentation method. Iterative contour-based ICP optimization is applied to contours of the reprojected sliced CT model and the extracted sub-structure contours until a convergence criterion (C1) is fulfilled, by computing, at each iteration, a transformation minimizing the sum of reprojection errors between extracted sub-structure contour points and a closest imaged vertex on the contours of the reprojected sliced CT model, and updating 2D-X-ray to 3D-CT correspondences for each anatomical sub-structure, resulting in a registered CT model (10r).

The invention relates to methods of detecting whether melanoma is present in a subject comprising measuring metabolite concentrations in a sample obtained from the subject.

The present invention relates to Vitamin B12 monomer having the structure represented by the formula 4 or 3, a method of synthesis of Vitamin B12 monomer having the structure represented by the formula 4 or 3, a method of synthesis of nanogels modified with Vitamin B12 using precipitation polymerization, a use of the nanogel modified with Vitamin B12 in drug delivery systems, a pharmaceutical composition comprising nanogel modified with Vitamin B12 and active ingredient, and a pharmaceutical composition comprising nanogel modified with Vitamin B12 and active ingredient for use in the treatment of cancer.

The present disclosure relates generally to methods of treating or preventing an adverse secondary neurological outcome in a subject following a haemorrhagic stroke accompanied by extravascular erythrolysis and release of cell-free heme and/or cell-free haemoglobin (Hb) into a cerebral spinal fluid (CSF), the method comprising exposing the CSF of a subject in need thereof to a therapeutically effective amount of hemopexin (Hx) and for a period of time sufficient to allow the Hx to form a complex with, and thereby neutralise, the cell-free heme and, optionally, exposing the CSF of the subject to a therapeutically effective amount of haptoglobin (Hp) and for a period of time sufficient to allow the Hp to form a complex with, and thereby neutralise, the cell-free Hb.

Disclosed is a treatment with a combination of inhibitors useful to improve the effectiveness of CAR T-cell therapies by inhibiting hypoxia, VEGF pathways and inflammation at the tumor microenvironment, thereby enhancing the response to CAR T-cell therapy in tumor patients. There is also disclosed a method for predicting the response to CAR T-cell therapy by determining T cell surface expression markers.

The invention relates to an adaptor molecule for targeting a cancer cell, comprising a somatostatin receptor 2 (SSTR2) targeting moiety, a linker moiety, and a tag moiety, wherein the SSTR2 targeting moiety is connected to the tag moiety by means of the linker moiety.