On June 16, 2023, Professor Lihua Li from Hangzhou Dianzi University, delivered a lecture titled “Intelligent tumor imaging to aid diagnostics and treatment - from ‘clinical problem driven’ to ‘scientific problem driven’" at the Lihu Campus of Shenzhen University. Professor Li was invited by Professor Tianfu Wang from the School of Biomedical Engineering of the Shenzhen University Medical School. This lecture marked the 84th talk of the Shenzhen University Medicine Forum.

Professor Li first outlined the research directions of the Smart Health Research Institute, which include developing nanobiology tools and techniques, using medical information for intelligent diagnosis and treatment, and developing intelligent rehabilitation robots. He also elaborated on the research philosophy of the institute, which is "Originate from clinical practice; Surpass clinical practice; Apply to clinical practice". From here, Prof. Li introduced a series of research achievements that have come from the institute, including those driven by both clinical and scientific problems. For example, he discussed the fusion application of multi-parameter imaging, an interpretability analysis of a tumor multi-indicator with deep joint prediction, the resolution enhancement achieved with different parameter imaging, the feature enhancement of cross-parameter imaging, and feature generation of cross-modal breast tomography image. He concluded that more precise and intelligent tumor diagnostics and treatment modalities can be generated by innovating technical methods for clinical problems.

When discussing issues of clinical and scientific problems, Professor Li also raised the viewpoint of heterogeneity and interpretability and emphasized that research should return to clinical practice and science. He elaborated further on the problems of heterogeneity in terms of space and time and the possible corresponding solutions. Here, Professor Li discussed his own research on elucidating how imaging genomics can be applied to better analyze tumor heterogeneity issues, and summarized how the mechanistic analysis of scientific problems can achieve a more accurate and intelligent diagnosis and treatment protocol for tumors.

Professor Li’s logical talk generated great interest and interaction with the audience. A lively question and answer session followed that covered both clinical and scientific questions related to tumor imaging and intelligent diagnostics and treatment, which benefitted all those in attendance.

Brief introduction of the Speaker

Professor Lihua Li is the Dean of the Smart Health Research Institute at Hangzhou University of Electronic Science and Technology. He is a winner of the National Outstanding Youth Fund and a national level candidate for the "New Century Billion Talents Project". Professor Li is a member of the Zhejiang Provincial Science and Technology Development Advisory Committee and the Zhijiang Laboratory Academic Advisory Committee. He is also the Director of the Intelligent Medical Digitalization Technology Committee of the IEEE TEMS Society, Chairman of the Image Information and Control Professional Committee of the Chinese Biomedical Engineering Society, and Vice Chairman of the Medical Imaging Professional Committee of the Chinese Imaging and Graphics Society. He is mainly engaged in intelligent biomedical research, and currently hosts key projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, key projects of the National Natural Science Foundation Regional Innovation Joint Fund, strategic scientific and technological innovation cooperation projects of the National Key R&D Plan, key projects of the National Natural Science Foundation Zhejiang Provincial People's Government Joint Fund, transformative technology projects of the National Key R&D Plan, and major projects of the Technological Innovation 2030 - "New Generation Artificial Intelligence".

Professor Baiying Lei presented Professor Lihua Li with the "Shenzhen University Medicine Forum" Honorary Medal