Alzheimer Nederland
Young Outstanding Researcher Award 2020

I am nominated for this award with my research on machine learning for improved dementia diagnosis. For this occassion, I made the video on my research above.

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Key publications

All publications
Esther Bron

Esther Bron is Assistant Professor at the Biomedical Imaging Group Rotterdam (BIGR, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, Netherlands) and PI of the research line ‘Neuroimage analysis and Machine learning’.

Research projects

Currently, she is mainly working on disease progression modeling of neurodegenerative diseases. This work led to development of the Discriminative Event-Based Model (DEBM). Esther collaborates with the Progression Of Neurodegenerative Disease (POND) group at University College London, with whom she is organizing the TADPOLE challenge which evaluates which data, processing pipelines, and predictive models provide the best estimates of future AD progression. In 2018, she won the Young eScientist Award which led to a collaboration with the Netherlands eScience Center on the TADPOLE-SHARE project.

In addition, Esther is coordinating the BIGR infrastructure for neuroimage analysis in multi-center studies, especially the image storage and analysis platform for the multi-center Heart-Brain Connection study. She led the pilot analysis for this study that demonstated the functionality of the infrastructure and the possibility of coupling and analyzing multi-center imaging and non-imaging data.

PhD degree

Esther obtained her PhD degree on March 9 2016 with her thesis entitled Advanced MRI Analysis for Computer-Aided Diagnosis of Dementia. In her PhD research under supervision of Prof. W.J. Niessen, dr. S. Klein and dr. M. Smits, Esther developed and improved multiple methods for computer-aided diagnosis of dementia. As part of this, she organized the CADDementia challenge which compared image-based diagnosis algorithms. In the CADDementia workshop at the MICCAI 2014 conference, she presented the results of this challenge. With this project, Esther was nominated for the Dutch Data Prize 2014 and won a Best Scientific Paper Presentation Award at the European Congress of Radiology in 2015.

Contact

Erasmus MC - University Medical Center Rotterdam

Department of Radiology & Nuclear Medicine
Office Na2502
P.O. Box 2040
3000 CA Rotterdam, NL

Awards

In the press

Publications

1. Journal Papers

2. Conference Papers

3. Conference Proceedings

4. Conference Abstracts

  • V. Venkatraghavan, S. Klein, L. Fani, L.S. Ham, H. Vrooman, M.K. Ikram, W.J. Niessen, E.E. Bron, Analyzing the effect of APOE on Alzheimer's disease progression using an event-based model for stratified populations, CompAge, 2020
  • E.J. Vinke*, V. Venkatraghavan*, E.E. Bron, W.J. Niessen, M.A. Ikram, S. Klein, M.W. Vernooij, Predicting the incidence of Alzheimer's disease in the general elderly population using event-based modelling, CompAge, 2020
  • E.E. Bron, V. Venkatraghavan, J. Linders, W.J. Niessen, and S. Klein, Deep versus Conventional Machine Learning for MRI-based diagnosis and prediction of Alzheimer’s disease, Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC), 2020
  • V. Venkatraghavan, J.L. Panman, E.L. van der Ende, R.M.E. Steketee, L.C. Jiskoot, J.M. Poos, E.G.P. Dopper, L.H.H. Meeter, L. Donker Kaat, S.A.R.B. Rombouts, M.W. Vernooij, A.J.A. Kievit, E. Premi, M. Cosseddu, E. Bonomi, J. Olives, J.D. Rohrer, R. Sanchez-Valle, B. Borroni, E.E. Bron, J.C. van Swieten, J.M. Papma, S. Klein, and GENFI consortium investigators, Modelling the cascade of biomarker changes in progranulin related frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC), 2020
  • A.E. Leeuwis, R.P. Amier, N. Marcks, R. Nijveldt, A.M. Hooghiemstra, H.P. Brunner-La Rocca, A. de Roos, J.H.J.M. de Bresser, E.E. Bron, W.J. Niessen, M. Buijs, F. Barkhof, A.C. van Rossum, Heart-Brain Connection consortium, W.M. van der Flier, Gray matter atrophy but not vascular brain injury is related to cognitive impairment in patients with heart failure, Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC), 2020

Team

  • Esther Bron, PhD

    Assistant Professor

  • Vikram Venkatraghavan

    Postdoctoral researcher / PhD candidate

  • Bo Li

    Postdoctoral researcher / PhD candidate

  • Thomas Michelotti

    MSc Econometrics, EUR

  • Lotte Mulder

    MSc Biomedical Engineering, TU Delft

Former team members

  • Savine Martens

    MSc Biomedical Engineering, TU Delft (2020)

  • Theodoros Theodoridis

    MSc Medical Natural Sciences, VU (2019)

  • Marloes Adank

    MSc Biomedical Engineering, TU Delft (2019)

  • Jara Linders

    MSc Brain & Cognitive Sciences, UvA (2019)

  • Leontine Ham

    MSc Medical Natural Sciences, VU (2018)

  • Thomas Michaud

    MSc, ENSEEIHT Toulouse (2018)

  • Sara Laros

    BSc Medical Natural Sciences, VU (2018)

  • Jim Smit

    BSc Clinical Technology, EMC/TU Delft/LUMC (2017)

  • Sandrine Lacomme

    MSc, ENSEEIHT Toulouse (2013)

  • Ines Merida

    MSc, Polytech Marseille (2012)