Current Environment: Development

Dev

Patricia Ellen Grant | Medical Services

Programs & Services

Languages

  • English

Patricia Ellen Grant | Education

Undergraduate School

BSc, Physics

University of Toronto

1984, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Graduate School

MSc, Theoretical Physics

University of Toronto

1988, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Medical School

University of Toronto

1989, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Internship

St. Paul's Hospital

1990, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Residency

Radiology

Vancouver General Hospital

1994, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Fellowship

Neuroradiology; Pediatric Neuroradiology

University of California, San Francisco

1996, San Francisco, CA

Patricia Ellen Grant | Certifications

  • American Board of Radiology (Diagnostic Radiology)
  • American Board of Radiology (Neuroradiology)

Patricia Ellen Grant | Professional History

Dr. Grant is the Käthe Beutler, MD Harvard Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. She is the founding Director of the Fetal Neonatal Neuroimaging and Developmental Science Center (FNNDSC) in the Departments of Medicine and Radiology, the Director of Faculty Affairs in the Department of Radiology, the Direct of Research for the Maternal Fetal Care Center and a clinical neuroradiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Grant founded the FNNDSC in 2009 to develop and optimize tools and analysis streams to better detect and understand both normal and abnormal brain physiology and development. The primary goal is to provide phenotypic and mechanistic information that enables optimization of cognitive, behavioral, and neurological outcomes in children with a focus on fetuses, neonates, infants, and toddlers. Three modalities are being developed in the FNNDSC: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and quantitative Near Infrared Spectroscopy (qNIRS). She leads a team of MR physicists and engineers doing pulse sequence development and novel MRI analysis at the forefront of fetal and placental MRI. Her team build a novel pediatric specific MEG system that is now FDA approved and provides clinical services for presurgical evaluation of infants and toddlers with epilepsy.

She is a pioneer of frequency domain NIRS (FDNIRS) and diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) which provides quantitative bedside measures of cerebral blood flow and oxygen consumption. To support the computational needs of complex data analysis, her team has developed a sophisticated computational infrastructure in collaboration with RedHat to support deep-learning approaches on large datasets and real time data analysis.

The FNNDSC currently has over 60 members with 17 faculty and 6 postdoctoral students. Dr. Grant is a Senior Fellow of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) and sits on the Board of Scientific Counselors for National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. In 2021 she received the Outstanding Contributions in Research Award from the American Society of Neuroradiology and in 2022 she received the Gold Medal Award from the American Society of Pediatric Neuroradiology. She is currently PI/MPI of 6 NIH grants and her center has over $40M of active funding.

Patricia Ellen Grant | Publications

As a clinical neuroradiologist, I work behind the scenes. I rarely meet the children and their families in person but I am always thinking about the individual child and the family behind the images. What knowledge can our images provide to best guide care for that individual child?

I started out as a physicist studying very theoretical concepts but switched into medicine to have a more direct human impact. I chose imaging as a specialty because I enjoy leveraging technology to provide the most relevant information possible. My research also focuses on developing and optimizing technological innovations to improve our ability to diagnose and manage pediatric disorders.