Prof Edwin van Beek

Chair of Clinical Radiology
University of Edinburgh

Biography
Professor Edwin van Beek graduated from Erasmus Medical School, Rotterdam, NL in 1987. His subsequent career saw him work in the UK, Amsterdam (PhD and Radiology speciality training), and then back in the UK (University of Sheffield – M,Ed,). He established a successful chest MRI programme, studied PET imaging at King’s College London to help establish PET imaging in Sheffield in 2000, and was involved in pulmonary hypertension and lung cancer groups with a focus on implementing MRI and CT for pulmonary vascular disease.

In 2004 he took up the position of professor of Radiology, Medicine and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Iowa (USA), where he developed a clinical service for Cardiac CT Angiography, worked on CT based methods for identification and quantification of lung diseases and established hyperpolarized gas lung MRI. He was instrumental in the Lung Imaging Database Consortium development of the National Cancer Institute of the NIH. He obtained his full medical license in Iowa during this time.

In 2009 he took up his current post, with an emphasis on quantitative imaging in cardiovascular, chest and PET imaging. His focus is on incorporating quantification of disease with both morphology and functional assessment. He is on ESR European Imaging Biomarkers Alliance board and RSNA Quantitative Imaging Biomarkers Alliance (USA). He has been particularly involved in cardiac multimodality research programmes and most recently on development in lung imaging (including lung cancer screening for Scotland) and development of artificial intelligence tools in cardiothoracic imaging.

During his nearly 20 years of membership of ISMRM, he served on a number committees and has actively engaged in this community. He was secretary and chairman of the Hyperpolarized Study Group, was a member of the Annual Programme Planning Committee and the Educational Committee, has served on the editorial board of JMRI (as deputy editor for more than 14 years) and organised a meeting on Value of MRI in Edinburgh. He has provided multiple invited lectures during ISMRM meetings on the topic of lung MRI and value based MR imaging.

He prides himself in being part of a multidisciplinary research field, published extensively and has more than 480 peer reviewed articles, 600 abstracts, 3 books and more than 50 book chapters. He has been active in numerous multidisciplinary research groups (EU, USA, UK) and he served on the editorial boards of World J of Radiology, ISRN and International Journal of Radiology. He is a reviewer for many prestigious journals, including Radiology, JMRI and other clinical journals. He is an active member of ESR, ESTI, ESCR (having served on various committees for ECR) and was President of the 7th International Workshop for Pulmonary Functional Imaging in Edinburgh in 2015 and Chairman for the 10th workshop in Hannover, Germany in 2022.
He is a fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, a member of the Radiological Society of North America and an honorary member of the Hellenic Radiological Society.
He was elected a member of the Fleischner Society in 2015. He was awarded the Fellowship by ISMRM in 2019 and obtained his European Diploma in Cardiovascular Radiology in 2019 and awarded the prestigious John West medal in 2022 for his life-time achievements for functional lung imaging.

He has served as a consultant for a number of software and hardware imaging related companies, including Holoxica, Imbio, Lunit and Aidence. He has worked on bringing novel tools to clinical workflow, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence integration, in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh’s Bioquarter development.