Medical Imaging Sciences

Medical imaging is a rapidly expanding field that needs input from team members with knowledge and skills in these different areas (chemistry, physics, computing, mathematics, biology, pharmacy, medicine) to achieve its promise in improving patient care. The aim of this MRes programme is to provide students who have graduated in any of these subject areas with advanced training to prepare them to apply their specialist graduate skills in the imaging field. The programme is intended mainly as a preparation for a PhD in the field, at King's or elsewhere, but it also serves as training for employment in hospitals and industry.

Medical imaging is a rapidly developing field of growing importance both in patient management and clinical decision making and in drug development and evaluation. Dramatic developments in imaging both anatomy and molecular processes, especially using Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Research and development in the field is highly multi-disciplinary with key roles played by computing scientists and mathematicians, chemists, pharmacists, physicists, biologists, and of course clinicians. The Division of Imaging Sciences hosts a multidisciplinary team of academics directing a wide range of cutting-edge research projects, with an emphasis on translation “from bench to bedside”.

Two thirds of this MRes programme consists of two medical imaging related research projects, which may be linked around different aspects of a single research area. The projects range from basic sciences to clinical evaluation and application. One third consists of taught modules totalling 60 credits. One of the taught modules is a compulsory introduction to the general area of medical imaging in all its forms; the other is an elective chosen from a range of specialist modules from the other masters programmes offered by the Division of Imaging Sciences: the MSc in Radiopharmaceutics & PET Radiochemistry, MSc in Medical Engineering and Physics, and the MSc in Nuclear Medicine Sciences.