Research Award of the University of Luebeck 2018: STEM Topics

Priv.-Doz. Dr.rer. biol. hum. André Mastmeyer is awarded the Science Prize of the University of Lübeck for his work "Accurate model-based segmentation of gynecologic brachytherapycatheter collections in MRI-images". The laudation was held by Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Heinz Handels, Director of the Institute for Medical Informatics.

The habilitation thesis of Priv.-Doz. Dr. André Mastmeyer in the field of virtual medicine and interventional assisting health systems was done at the Institute of Medical Informatics 2011-2017. In this context, needle interventions on virtually breathing patient bodies were planned and also the bending properties of needles were simulated and combined with image properties, which plays an important role for model-based error minimization in the award-winning work. This enables the mapping of an often dark and diffuse catheter artifact in the MR slice image to the coordinate system of a catheter template fixed to the patient, and the emitters can be introduced into the template aperture targeting the lesion.
The error quality achieved in this work currently represents the gold standard also in terms of time efficiency in the subject area of catheter segmentation in intraoperative MR image data. In the future, the novel methods are expected to make brachytherapy for prostate and cervical carcinoma more reliable and safer using an intraoperative MR image-based assistance system.

Andre Mastmeyer, born in Hanover in 1973, studied computer science with the application subject "medical informatics" at the University of Hildesheim from 1992 to 1997. He received his doctorate and habilitation from the Universities of Erlangen-Nuremberg and Lübeck. A research stay at Harvard Medical School, Boston, laid the foundation for the publication, which was developed in an international team. He completed his dissertation on image-based osteoporosis diagnostics from 2003-2005 at the Institute of Medical Physics under Profes. Dr. Klaus Engelke and Willi A. Kalender.

The university`s Research Award has been awarded since 2004 as "Heinrich-Dräger-Wissenschaftspreis", initiated by the Lübeck patron and recipient of the University Medal Lisa Dräger, for a high-ranking scientific publication from the university.