Professor Jan Wolber

PhD, MBA.

Clinical Medicine, School of Medicine and Population Health

Honorary Professor of MR Physics

j.wolber@sheffield.ac.uk

Polaris

Full contact details

Professor Jan Wolber
Clinical Medicine, School of Medicine and Population Health
Polaris
18 Claremont Crescent
Sheffield
S10 2TA

Profile

I have been Honorary Professor of MR Physics since 2012, working in the POLARIS group under Professor Jim Wild.

I am a full-time employee of GE Healthcare and have had roles in Research & Development and more recently in Product Leadership. I am currently Product Leader Digital and responsible for the digital product strategy in the Pharmaceutical Diagnostics division of GE Healthcare which is a leading provider of contrast media and molecular imaging tracers.

Qualifications

PhD thesis on hyperpolarized ¹²⁹Xe MR; University of London / Institute of Cancer research in 2000.
MBA degree from Warwick Business School in 2014.

Research interests

My research interests are related to medical imaging and also to the use of advanced analytics and AI in patient-centric care. In addition to applying AI in the analysis of medical images, I am interested in identifying uses that integrate multi-variate clinical data to allow predictions that assist medical decision-making.

I am passionate about hyperpolarized ¹²⁹Xe MR since the days of my PhD and have worked with Professor Jim Wild and his group on aspects of this technology. I am particularly interested in understanding physiological processes that can be interrogated with ¹²⁹Xe MR spectroscopy.

As part of my Innovate UK scholarship, I am interested in healthcare innovation from academic research to product development and commercialisation. The goal of the secondment is to identify particularly promising solutions and to develop plans for scaling them up and developing them to the wider benefit of the NHS and patients in the UK and beyond.

Publications

Journal articles

Norquay G, Leung G, Stewart NJ, Wolber J & Wild JM (2017) 129 Xe chemical shift in human blood and pulmonary blood oxygenation measurement in humans using hyperpolarized 129 Xe NMR. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 77(4), 1399-1408. View this article in WRRO
Norquay G, Leung G, Stewart NJ, Tozer GM, Wolber J & Wild JM (2015) Relaxation and exchange dynamics of hyperpolarized129Xe in human blood. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 74(2), 303-311.
Stewart NJ, Leung G, Norquay G, Marshall H, Parra-Robles J, Murphy PS, Schulte RF, Elliot C, Condliffe R, Griffiths PD , Kiely DG et al (2015) Experimental validation of the hyperpolarized 129 Xe chemical shift saturation recovery technique in healthy volunteers and subjects with interstitial lung disease. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 74(1), 196-207. View this article in WRRO
Virgincar RS, Cleveland ZI, Sivaram Kaushik S, Freeman MS, Nouls J, Cofer GP, Martinez-Jimenez S, He M, Kraft M, Wolber J , Page McAdams H et al (2013) Quantitative analysis of hyperpolarized 129 Xe ventilation imaging in healthy volunteers and subjects with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. NMR in Biomedicine, 26(4), 424-435.
Marshall H, Deppe MH, Parra-Robles J, Hillis S, Billings CG, Rajaram S, Swift A, Miller SR, Watson JH, Wolber J , Lipson DA et al (2012) Direct visualisation of collateral ventilation in COPD with hyperpolarised gas MRI. Thorax, 67(7), 613-617. View this article in WRRO

Chapters

Norquay G, Wolber J & Wild JM (2015) Chapter 20. 129Xe Chemical Shift and Spin–Lattice Relaxation Dependences on Blood Oxygenation, Hyperpolarized Xenon-129 Magnetic Resonance (pp. 365-391). Royal Society of Chemistry
Norquay G, Wolber J & Wild JM (2015) ¹²⁹Xe chemical shift and spin-lattice relaxation dependences on blood oxygenation (pp. 365-391).

Conference proceedings papers

Stewart NJ, Norquay G, Parra-Robles J, Marshall H, Leung G, Murphy PS, Schulte RF, Elliot CA, Condliffe R, Billings CG , Smith I et al (2015) Assessment of lung microstructure in ILD with3He and129Xe MRI. 4.1 Clinical respiratory physiology, exercise and functional imaging
Stewart N, Norquay G, Parra-Robles J, Marshall H, Leung G, Murphy P, Schulte R, Elliot C, Condliffe R, Billings C , Smith I et al (2014) P273 Assessment Of Lung Microstructure In Interstitial Lung Disease With Hyperpolarised Gas Mri. Thorax, Vol. 69(Suppl 2) (pp A192-A193)
Stewart NJ, Leung G, Norquay G, Marshall H, Parra-Robles J, Billings C, Murphy P, Schulte RF, Wolber J, Kiely DG , Whyte MKB et al (2014) Age-dependent changes in whole-lung septal thickness measured by Xe-129 MRI: A comparison of healthy volunteers and subjects with IPF. EUROPEAN RESPIRATORY JOURNAL, Vol. 44
Stewart NJ, Leung G, Norquay G, Marshall H, Parra-Robles J, Billings C, Murphy P, Schulte RF, Wolber J, Kiely DG , Whyte MKB et al (2014) Age-dependent changes in whole-lung septal thickness measured by Xe-129 MRI: A comparison of healthy volunteers and subjects with IPF. EUROPEAN RESPIRATORY JOURNAL, Vol. 44
Stewart NJ, Leung G, Norquay G, Marshall H, Parra-Robles J, Wolber J, Schulte RF, Condliffe R, Elliot C, Murphy P , Kiely D et al (2014) Dissolved 129xe Mri - Delayed Gas Uptake Indicates Septal Thickening In Patients With Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis And Systemic Sclerosis. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, Vol. 189
Marshall H, Deppe MH, Parra-Robles J, Hillis S, Billings C, Rajaram S, Swift AJ, Miller SR, Watson JH, Wolber J , Lipson DA et al (2012) Direct Imaging Of Delayed And Collateral Ventilation In COPD Using Hyperpolarised Gas MRI. D100. THE BIG ROLE OF SMALL AIRWAYS
Marshall H, Deppe MH, Parra-Robles J, Hillis S, Billings C, Miller SR, Watson JH, Wolber J, Lipson DA, Lawson R & Wild JM (2011) S118 Direct visualisation of collateral ventilation in COPD with hyperpolarised Gas MRI. Thorax, Vol. 66(Suppl 4) (pp A54-A55)

Grants

Innovate UK: Innovation Scholar Secondment grant 75242: Informing patient management through real-world clinical data analytics (January 2021 to December 2023).

Professional activities and memberships

EPSRC peer review college member.
Sift and interview panel member, UKRI FLF scheme.
Chair of external advisory board, ONBI CDT, Universities of Oxford and Nottingham.
Member of Scientific Management Committee, SABS:R³ CDT, University of Oxford.
Member of Life Sciences Program Expert Group, UK National Physics Laboratory.
Member of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, ISMRM.
Member of the German Physics Society, DPG.