Dr Marcus Kitchen

Brief description

Dr Marcus Kitchen is investigating novel phase contrast X-ray imaging techniques for studying lung development, physiology and disease states using coherent synchrotron radiation. Phase contrast enhances absorption based radiographic contrast by exploiting variations in an object's refractive index. The many air/tissue interfaces within the lung provide large refractive index variations, which make them ideally suited for phase contrast imaging studies. Dr Kitchen is continuing the research he began during his PhD where he formed a colloboration with researchers from the Monash Department of Physiology. This collaborative effort seeks to understand the mechanisms by which the lungs aerate at birth, which is critical to the survival of all neonates. Insight into this complex process will enable medical doctors to provide better care for infants born preterm with under-developed lungs, thereby increasing their survival rate. Phase contrast imaging experiments have enabled lung aeration to be observed in rabbit pups in vivo, using the SPring-8 synchrotron facility in Japan. Dr Kitchen has developed new methods of extracting quantitative information from various phase contrast imaging modalities. This work has been critical for the study of lung development. He has successfully devised a method of calculating regional volumes of lung aeration from 2D images sequences of newborn rabbit pups. This information is crucial for assessing the rates and patterns of lung aeration at birth.