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Hanzhang Lu

Hanzhang Lu, PhD

Johns Hopkins Affiliations:
  • Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Faculty

Languages

  • English

Gender

Male

About Hanzhang Lu

Professional Titles

  • Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. Professor
  • Director, MRI Service Center
  • Chief, NeuroFunction Section, Department of Radiology

Primary Academic Title

Professor of Radiology and Radiological Science

Background

Hanzhang Lu is an internationally recognized leader in physiological MRI. He has published over 240 peer-reviewed journal articles with an h-index of 66 and a total citation of >18,000. He is an associate editor of Frontiers in Neuroscience — Brain Imaging Methods, and he serves on the editorial boards of NeuroImage and NMR in Biomedicine. He has also been a guest editor of special issues on physiological MRI.

Dr. Lu was a charter member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) medical imaging review panel, and he chaired several NIH study sections — including one on biomedical imaging technology — and high-end instrumentation and special emphasis panels.

Dr. Lu’s research focuses on development of MRI techniques to understand brain physiology and pathophysiology. He is a fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and a distinguished investigator for the Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research.

Hanzhang Lu was the chair of the ISMRM perfusion study group. He served on the ISMRM’s Annual Meeting Program Committee, Trainee Stipend Committee, Awards Committee, and he was the program director of the ISMRM fMRI Study Group in 2011 and 2012. He was a lead organizer of the Brain at Work plenary session during the ISMRM annual meeting in Honolulu in 2017, and he chaired an ISMRM-sponsored workshop on functional MRI in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2014, and an ISMRM-sponsored workshop on Perfusion in Los Angeles, California, in 2022. He also chaired the organizing committee for the 2019 Imaging Cerebral Physiology Symposium.

In the Johns Hopkins Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Dr. Lu serves as the director of the MRI Service Center and chief of the neurofunction section in the MR research division. He is also the chair of the RORA Oversight Committee, and he has been a member of the department’s committees on CDAC, the Lunch and Learn Lecture Series, research joint chiefs of staff, Research Day organizing and pilot grant review.

Research Interests

Aging and neurodegenerative diseases, Blood-brain barrier permeability, Cerebral blood flow, Cerebral blood volume, Cerebral oxygen metabolism, Cerebrovascular diseases, Cerebrovascular reactivity, Magnetic resonance imaging, Normal brain function and physiology, Oxygen extraction fraction, Vascular compliance

Research Summary

Dr. Lu’s research has been focused on the development of MRI techniques to understand brain physiology and their applications in brain diseases. He has previously developed novel MRI techniques to measure cerebral blood volume (CBV), brain oxygenation (OEF) and metabolism (CMRO2), cerebral blood flow (CBF), blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability, and cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR), which has been widely cited and used in the field.

Significant research contributions include:

  1. Developing the vascular-space-occupancy (VASO) functional MRI method for imaging cerebral blood volume changes during brain activation. This technique provides highly localized mapping of neural activity, enhances the understanding of the BOLD signal, and has been used to conduct quantitative functional MRI. In 2012, Neuroimage published a special issue to celebrate 20 years of fMRI and the VASO technique was included as one of the major developments in fMRI.
  2. Developing the widely used diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) technique to account for non-Gaussian diffusion of water in biologic systems.
  3. Developing non-invasive MRI techniques to measure the brain’s oxygen metabolism and this technique, known as the TRUST MRI, has become the benchmark technique in the field.
  4. Developing CO2/O2 gas-inhalation MRI for the measurement of cerebrovascular reactivity, which is an important biomarker of normal aging and cerebrovascular conditions and diseases.
  5. Improving the Arterial-Spin-Labeling (ASL) MRI for the assessment of brain perfusion, and developing ASL-based techniques for the measurement of blood-brain barrier permeability.
  6. Improving function MRI by accounting for physiological variations via normalization and calibration methods. 

Dr. Lu and his colleagues have applied the techniques he invented to a variety of clinical applications, including Alzheimer’s disease, cognitive aging, vascular dementia, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, depression, schizophrenia, neonatal hypoxic ischemia, and drug addiction.

Selected Publications

  • Lu H, Ge Y. Quantitative evaluation of oxygenation in venous vessels using T2-Relaxation-Under-Spin-Tagging MRI. Magn Reson Med. 2008;60(2):357-63.

  • Lu H, Golay X, Pekar JJ, van Zijl PC. Functional magnetic resonance imaging based on changes in vascular space occupancy. Magn Reson Med. 2003;50(2):263-274

  • Lu H, Xu F, Rodrigue KM, Kennedy KM, Cheng Y, Flicker B, Hebrank AC, Uh J, Park DC. Alterations in cerebral metabolic rate and blood supply across the adult lifespan. Cereb Cortex. 2011;21(6):1426-1434.

  • Lin Z, Sur S, Soldan A, Pettigrew C, Miller M, Oishi K, Bilgel M, Moghekar A, Pillai JJ, Albert M, Lu H. Brain oxygen extraction by MRI in older individuals: relationship to Apolipoprotein E genotype and amyloid burden. Radiology. 2019;292(1):140-148.

  • Pascual JM, Liu P, Mao D, Kelly DI, Hernandez A, Sheng M, Good LB, Ma Q, Marin-Valencia I, Zhang X, Park JY, Hynan LS, Stavinoha P, Roe CR, Lu H. Triheptanoin for glucose transporter type I deficiency (G1D): modulation of human ictogenesis, cerebral metabolic rate, and cognitive indices by a food supplement. JAMA Neurol. 2014;71(10):1255-1265.

Honors

  • Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. Professor
  • Fellow, American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, 1/1/19
  • Secretary-elect, ISMRM Perfusion Study Group, 1/1/19
  • Chair, 4th Imaging Cerebral Physiology (ICP) Network Symposium, 1/1/19
  • Chair, NIH High-end Instrumentation (HIE) Study Section, 1/1/19
  • Fellow, International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 1/1/18
  • Chair, NIH Biomedical Imaging Technology A (BMIT-A) Study Section, 1/1/18
  • Distinguished Investigator Award, Academy for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research, 1/1/17
  • Chair, Organizing Committee of ISMRM-sponsored workshop on functional MRI Committee Member, Annual Meeting Program Committee of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 1/1/15
  • Appointed Charter Member, NIH Medical Imaging (MEDI) Study Section, 1/1/13
  • Program Director, Current Issues in Brain Function Study Group, International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 1/1/11
  • Friends of Alzheimer's Disease Center Research Award, Alzheimer's Disease Center, 1/1/07
  • UT Southwestern Endowed Scholar in Biomedical Research, UT Southwestern Medical Center, 1/1/05
  • Young Investigator Award, Gordon Research Conference on Brain Energy Metabolism and Blood Flow, 1/1/04

Graduate Program Affiliations

  • Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program, Johns Hopkins University

Memberships

  • International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
  • Organization of Human Brain Mapping
  • American Society of Functional Neuroradiology (ASFNR)

Professional Activities

  • Annual Meeting Program Committee of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Committee Member, 1/1/15 - 1/1/18
  • Current Issues in Brain Function Study Group, International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Program Director, 1/1/11 - 1/1/12
  • Imaging Cerebral Physiology Network Symposium, Chair of the organizing committee, 1/1/19
  • ISMRM-sponsored workshop on functional MRI, Chair of the organizing committee, 1/1/14
  • Perfusion Study Group, International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Executive Committee, 1/1/19
  • Plenary Session on "Brain at Work", International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine Annual Meeting, Leading co-organizer, 1/1/17
  • Subcommittee on Trainee Stipend, International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Committee Member, 1/1/10 - 1/1/13

Expertise

Education

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Ph.D., 2004

Shanghai Jiao Tong University

B.E., 1996