Dr. Udo Hoffmann, MD, MPH - Director
Dr. Hoffmann, is a clinical cardiac radiologist with over ten years of experience in noninvasive cardiovascular imaging. He received his MD from the Medical School at the University of Leipzig, Germany and received an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed his residency in radiology at the University of Vienna, Austria, and is an Associate Professor in Radiology at the Harvard Medical School. He was the American Roentgen Ray Society, Elio Bracco Scholar in 2005.
He is the Director of the MGH Cardiac MR PET CT Program. He has conducted several NIH-sponsored and industry-supported studies, and leads the Imaging Core Lab of the Framingham Heart Study.
His research initially focused on the feasibility of cardiac CT for the detection of coronary stenosis and assessment of atherosclerotic plaque. More recently, he has built a multidisciplinary research team to systematically assess the clinical utility of novel imaging technologies. His research has resulted in over 100 publications to date.
Dr. Homer Pien, PhD, MBA - Managing Director
Dr. Pien has been with the MGH community since 1998. He became the Managing Director of the Center for Biomarkers in Imaging in 2004, and also serves as the Managing Director for the CVIC Lab. Dr. Pien is also the Director of the Laboratory for Medical Imaging & Computations (LMIC) within the Cardiac Imaging Program.
Prior to joining MGH, Dr. Pien was co-founder, CEO, and COO of SRU Biosystems, a biotech startup focusing on the development of a novel biosensor for drug discovery and proteomics. Before SRU, Dr. Pien was Vice President and Technical Director of Medical OnLine, Inc., which provides web-based neuroradiological image delivery service. Prior to Medical OnLine, Dr. Pien was with Draper Laboratory for 10 years, first as the leader of the Image Processing Group, and later as the Director of Biomedical Technologies program office. While at Draper, Dr. Pien helped to establish the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT), and served as CIMIT’s first Director of Technology. Before Draper, Dr. Pien was with MIT Lincoln Laboratory for five years.
Dr. Pien received his BS in Mathematics from the University of Illinois, MS and PhD in Computer Science, focusing on image processing and computer vision, from Northeastern University, and MS in Management from MIT.
Nathan Sciortino, BA - Administrative Manager
Nathan Sciortino is the Administrative Manager for the CVIC Lab and functions as the Project Manager for all active clinical trials.
Nathan has extensive experience as a Project Manager at a premier imaging CRO, leading image data management efforts on 15 Phase II-IV clinical trials and communicating effectively with clients in pharmaceutical and biotech industries. He has managed trials with sites on 5 continents with cumulative enrollment of over 3,000 patients and 20,000 image sets. As the key operational interface, he was responsible for study management, risk mitigation, planning deliverables, managing complex budgets, coordinating the independent review and completion of study closeout for large-scale global studies. Nathan also worked as a Research Coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania, conducting human brain imaging research and mastering ICH/GCP guidelines and HIPAA compliance in the clinical setting. He has vast experience in the management of the imaging component of clinical trials across multiple therapeutic areas including Cardiovascular, Neurology, Oncology, Nephrology, Musculoskeletal, Genetic Disorders, and Imaging Contrast Agents.
Nathan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston College and is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Bioimaging from Boston University School of Medicine.