BrainMap

Mr. Radu Gabriel Danescu

Prof. Dr. Habil.

Professor - UNIVERSITATEA TEHNICA DIN CLUJ - NAPOCA

Researcher | Teaching staff | PhD supervisor

Web of Science ResearcherID: not public

Curriculum Vitae (22/01/2019)

Expertise & keywords

Developing a method for real-time detection and isolation of circulating tumor cells from the bloodstream of cancer patients by means of image processing and pattern recognition Call name: Joint Applied Research Projects - PCCA 2013 - call
PN-II-PT-PCCA-2013-4-2289 2014 - 2017

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA DE MEDICINA SI FARMACIE (U.M.F) Cluj-Napoca

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA DE MEDICINA SI FARMACIE (U.M.F) Cluj-Napoca (RO); UNIVERSITATEA TEHNICA DIN CLUJ - NAPOCA (RO); DATRONIX COMPUTER S.R.L. (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA TEHNICA DIN CLUJ - NAPOCA (RO)

Project website: http://ctcvideoscope.utcluj.ro

Abstract:

Cancer is a major public health problem both in Western countries and in Romania. In general, cancer related death is caused by the occurrence of metastasis. The metastatic process begins with the migration of malignant cells from the primary tumor, followed by penetration into the circulation and their spread in the body. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs), the 'leukemic phase' of solid tumors, are the most promising tumor marker of the moment. They correlate with overall survival and disease free survival, allowing early detection of metastatic process, monitoring of disease progression and of treatment response. In addition, being the equivalent of a "liquid biopsy", CTCs offer the promise of personalized therapy based on their biomolecular analysis. CTC identification is a difficult task and there is no ideal method of detection yet. Most current methods have a low sensitivity because they analyze only a small sample of circulating blood. Oncology practice requires a sensitive method, allowing continuous monitoring over extended periods of time and which can be repeated frequently.

The current project aims to develop an automatic method for continuous real-time detection and isolation of CTCs from the bloodstream of cancer patients, based on their distinctive morphological characteristics, after an original idea proposed by the project director. The method is inspired by the automated video surveillance systems of the highway traffic. Thus, one can imagine a portable, battery powered device, for continuous CTC monitoring over long periods of time, in conditions of total comfort for the patient (even at home). In principle, blood is continuously aspirated from the patient through a two-way intravenous catheter, is passed through the analysis device and then is re-injected through the same catheter. Inside the machine, the blood is gently pumped in a laminar flow at a constant speed through a transparent chamber-slide mounted in a phase contrast microscope. It allows visualization of live, unstained blood cells. Microscopic images, shot with a camera attached to the microscope, are transmitted to the computer system. This, by means of image analysis and pattern recognition will identify the CTC in real time based on distinct morphology, acting a downstream switch that diverts for a moment the blood flow towards one container, where the cell is stored for later analysis. The remaining blood flow, without CTCs, is re-injected into the patient.

The main goal of this project is to offer a “proof of concept” of this new method of detection, while the developpment of the commercial variant of the device will be relegated to a future project (INNOVATION). Specifically, we will realize an experimental model to test in vitro blood samples from healthy volunteers, artificially spiked with malignant cells from cell culture. We will use commercial cell lines of breast, colon and prostate cancer, but we will also run real samples from patients with the same type of cancer. The method will be validated by comparative testing of similar blood samples with other well established methods. In addition, the viability of isolated CTCs will be tested by in vitro cultivation and by application of molecular biology techniques for evidence of specific mutations by RT-PCR, sequencing, in situ hybridization or immunocytochemistry.

The current project capitalize on experience and knowledge about CTCs acquired during the Project IDEAS PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0753, directed by Prof. T.E. Ciuleanu from Iuliu Hatieganu’ University of Medicine and Pharmacy Cluj-Napoca. These strenghts, complemented with expertise in automated detection of Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, that develops the software, and with engineering capabilities of DATRONIX company, that builds the experimental model, will ensure the successful achievement of project objectives.

Cooperative Advanced Driving Assistance System Based on Smart Mobile Platforms and Road Side Units Call name: Joint Applied Research Projects - PCCA-2011 call, Type 2
PN-II-PT-PCCA-2011-3.2-0742 2012 - 2016

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA TEHNICA CLUJ ACTIVITATE ECONOMICA

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA TEHNICA CLUJ ACTIVITATE ECONOMICA (RO); AROBS TRANSILVANIA SOFTWARE S.R.L. (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA TEHNICA CLUJ ACTIVITATE ECONOMICA (RO)

Project website: http://cv.utcluj.ro/smartcodrive/

Abstract:

The SmartCoDrive project aims to increase the road traffic safety, road traffic mobility, quality of driving and will reduce fuel consumption and pollution by providing a universal and portable solution for advanced driving assistance systems, based on a cooperative approach, and using the advanced and increasing capabilities of the smart phone type devices. There exists no similar approach, in research or market that combines all these three elements (advance driving assistance, cooperative systems, and smart phone type devices) to provide a unified solution for improving the driving assistance. Furthermore, one of the main advantages of the proposed solution is the immediate applicability and market penetration. The smart mobile type devices have experienced an exponential market growth due to their increased technical capabilities and considerably better benefit-cost ratio. Their applicability is also increasing and in this project we will exploit it in order to produce a solution that is unique, both in research and in the market, and that will be available and accessible for a large number of users. The concept of this project is the development of a cooperative approach for driving assistance with the following main components: a unified sensorial, hardware and software smart mobile platform (SMP) for cooperative driving assistance based on a smart mobile device (SMD); a general purpose road side unit (RSU) for information gathering, fusion and sharing; and a regional traffic information system (RTIS) for integration with traditional traffic information systems like Traffic Message Channel (TMC) and Fleet Management. The major key technologies that will be developed in this project are: virtual sensors, V2X communication and Local Dynamic Map (LDM). On this architecture cooperative advanced driving assistance applications will be developed with the aim of improving safety, mobility and eco-driving.

Multi-scale multi-modal perception of dynamic 3D environments based on the fusion of dense stereo, dense optical flow and visual odometry information Call name: Exploratory Research Projects - PCE-2011 call
PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-1086 2012 - 2016

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: Universitatea Tehnica din Cluj-Napoca

Project partners: Universitatea Tehnica din Cluj-Napoca (RO)

Affiliation: Universitatea Tehnica din Cluj-Napoca (RO)

Project website: http://cv.utcluj.ro/multisens

Abstract:

Accurate artificial sensing of complex dynamic environments has been the long time focus of many research teams, this field receiving constant attention from governments and industry. A popular passive sensor for environment perception, stereovision delivers large quantities of information, but the density and the accuracy of the 3D data depends on the quality of the processing algorithms. This project’s aim is to bring significant improvements to the field of stereovision-based perception of complex dynamic environments, by establishing the mathematical foundation and by designing and implementing original solutions for multi-scale multi-modal perception and representation of structured and unstructured environments, based on the fusion of high accuracy dense stereo, high accuracy dense optical flow and highly accurate visual odometry information. The project will bring original contributions in the field of stereovision and optical flow computation from image sequences, and will combine these results towards extracting accurate 3D features and their 3D speed vectors. The increased accuracy and density of the dynamic 3D features will be exploited in new solutions for higher level perception of the environment, featuring new models for dynamic world representation, and new probabilistic perception and tracking techniques. The original results will be proven on mobile demonstrators, and disseminated in high impact publications.

FILE DESCRIPTION	DOCUMENT
List of research grants as project coordinator	Download (15.44 kb) 27/04/2016
List of research grants as partner team leader
List of research grants as project coordinator or partner team leader
Significant R&D projects for enterprises, as project manager
R&D activities in enterprises
Peer-review activity for international programs/projects