Newsletter - 2023 Summer Edition

HealthTech executive committee member Nicolas Padoy was recently awarded the ERC Consolidator Grant to pursue his project entitled "CompSURG." 

Incoming Master students

Five 1^st year MSc. Fellows: the first year track of the HealthTech program is now entering its second year! For the 2023/2024 academic year, 5 fellows were selected from amongst their peers as the highest-achieving and best fit for HealthTech. These fellows come from a variety of backgrounds and countries including Brazil, Syria, and Egypt and will have the opportunity to choose from a broad spectrum of disciplinary courses for their first year of Master-level studies.

Eight 2^nd year MSc. Fellows : Eight fellows were selected for direct entry into the second year of the Master program. These students include those from INSA Strasbourg, Mines de Paris, Polimi, HIAST, the Faculté des sciences économiques et de gestion and the Faculté de Médecine at the University of Strasbourg. These eight fellows will be joined by one student from Polytechnique Montréal and the incoming Master students from the M1 class.

This year's call for PhD proposals has resulted in the funding of five outstanding doctoral projects. The selected projects highlight the diversity and interdisciplinarity of the HealthTech program:

• Study and numerical analysis of femoral varus osteotomy by lateral opening
• Robot-assisted, focused ultrasound device for volumetric Blood-Brain-Barrier opening
• Tumour segmentation in multimodal 3D imagery using self-supervised learning
• Laser scanning out of multi-core optical fiber for tumor treatment
• Numerical abacuses applied to the orthodontic field, a tool dedicated to the practitioners for the optimization of the choice of shape memory alloys archwires

The first two of the above projects  have received co-funding from the following partners:

• ICAM Strasbourg-Europe https://icam-strasbourg.eu/
• Laboratoire Commun (LabCom) TechnoFUS Lab https://www.technofuslab.cnrs.fr/

HealthTech is a sponsor for the 2023 edition of the PFIA (Plate-forme Intelligence Artificielle), which will be held from July 3-7 in Strasbourg. The objective of the PFIA is to bring together researchers, industrialists and students together for conferences and workshops dedicated to themes within Artificial Intelligence. The PFIA provides a unique and welcoming environment for the AI community to bring together the different disciplines that compose it and to establish bridges between them.

University of Strasbourg students (undergraduate, graduate, doctoral) may register free of charge for the associated workshops and conferences. Meals are not included.

https://pfia23.icube.unistra.fr/

Following last year’s success, the Surgical Data Science (SDS) Summer School will be returning to Strasbourg from July 17^th-20^th. The organizing committee is composed of: Nicolas Padoy, Pietro Mascagni, Vinkle Srivastav, Alexandros Karargyris, Silvana Peretta, Agnès Gronfier, and Justine Chadefaux. HealthTech is once again a proud sponsor of this event.

The five-day intensive program will consist of a series of lectures and hands-on labs which will provide the selected participants with a unique opportunity to work in small teams on practical surgical data science projects.

https://www.edu4sds.org/

The Journée BETA took place on March 7, 2023 with the objective to bring together members of the BETA (Bureau of Theoretical and Applied Economics) with HealthTech-affiliated reseachers in order to foster collaboration between the different branches of HealthTech. This collaborative workshop was held in the HealthTech-sponsored Créativ'Lab and focused on creativity, science, and innovation within the interdisciplinary fields in HealthTech.

A new Interdisciplinary Seed Project funding opportunity is set to open in Fall 2023. The exact dates will be communicated in early fall.

Stefano Bianchini, Associate Professor in Data Science and Innovation Economics, successfully defended his HDR on February 10, 2023. The research work he presented was entitled “The age of intelligent machines: Digital technologies for the most important challenges facing humanity”.

HDR Committee:

• Julien PENIN (Garant) - Professor, Université de Strasbourg, Scientific Guarantor
• Alessandra COLOMBELLI - Professor, Politecnico di Torino – Italy
• Claude DIEBOLT - Directeur de Recherche, CNRS, Université de Strasbourg – France
• Aldo GEUNA - Professor, University of Torino – Italy
• Reinhilde VEUGELERS - Professor, KU Leuven – Belgium

Eléonore Dufresne, "Unified framework for change detection in multimodal brain MRI. Application to longitudinal analysis of Multiple Sclerosis patients"

• ICube, Images & Imis teams
• PhD Supervisors: Dr. Vincent Noblet & Dr. Stéphane Kremer
•  PhD Defense: June 20, 2023

Sujit Kumar Sahu, "Intraluminal sensing for autonomous navigation in remote district"

• ICube, RDH team
• PhD Supervisors: Prof. Ariana Menciassi & Prof. Pierre Renaud
•  PhD Defense: February 6, 2023

Guiqiu Liao, "Simultaneous Tissue Identification and Mapping for Autonomous Guidance"

• ICube, RDH team
• PhD Supervisors: Prof. Michel de Mathelin & Prof. Fiorini Paolo
•  PhD Defense: February 26, 2023

Nariaki Okamoto, "The application of intraoperative optical imaging to optimise colorectal oncological surgery and prevent complications"

• ICube, IPP team
• PhD Supervisors: Dr. Michèle Diana & Dr. Paul Montgoméry
•  PhD Defense: March 6, 2023

Thibault Poignonec, "Online models learning for adaptive assistance to teleoperated minimally invasive surgery"

• ICube Laboratory, RDH team
• PhD Supervisors: Prof. Bernard Bayle & Dr. Florent Nageotte
•  PhD Defense: May 3, 2023

While summertime is quickly approaching for students, here at HealthTech we are looking ahead to the beginning of a new school year and welcoming our Master's and doctoral students.

Back to school Master's : Our back-to-school Master's meeting is set for September 7th, with a meet and greet scheduled between our incoming and current Master's students. 

AAP Master Project Presentation :  Our annual info session for Master's projects is tentatively scheduled for September 13th. Project supervisors will be contacted by email with more precise information regarding the modalities of the presentation and the timing.

Back to school PhD : We will hold a meet and greet and formal presentation of HealthTech for our incoming doctoral students during the month of September (date to be announced). 

We have big plans for the fall with regular events between the HealthTech network and HealthTech students so please check our website regularly to stay up-to-date with news and events.

We wish you a happy, healthy, and restful summer and can't wait to see you all in the fall. 

• New scientific publications
• Outreach events, summer schools and other events
• New incoming members
• Recent PhD and HDR defenses
• Fundings and awards, etc.