Francesco joined VHIO in 2020. His research aims to develop novel Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) techniques for cancer assessment that are informed by histology. He is also involved in designing MRI acquisition and analysis pipelines in the clinical studies of the Radiomics Group.
Scientific trajectory
Francesco is a biomedical engineer specialised in computational MRI, with almost 12 years of experience in MRI research. He graduated from the University of Cagliari (BEng Biomedical engineering, 2009) and University of Genoa (MEng Bioengineering, 2012), Italy. He then obtained a PhD from University College London (UCL, UK) in Magnetic Resonance Physics (2016). He worked as a post-doc at UCL from 2016 to 2020, where he investigated new ways of acquiring and analysing spinal cord diffusion MRI scans in multiple sclerosis. During his post-doc at UCL, he visited New York University (NY, USA) in 2017 (Sept-Nov), and was elected Trainee representative (2018-2020) of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) White Matter Study Group. From October 2020 he has been a post-doctoral researcher at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, where he works on whole-body and abdominal MRI for precision medicine in oncology. In September 2021 he was awarded a Beatriu de Pinós Fellowship, and from September 2022 he is a “la Caixa” Foundation Junior Leader Fellow, working to develop next-generation diffusion MRI techniques to fight cancer. From January 1st 2025, he was promoted to the role of Senior Investigator within the group.
Contact and links
- Web page on GitHub
- Google Scholar
- PhD thesis
- LinkedIn
- X (former twitter)
- ORCID
- Email
- CV
Open Science
He contributes to the release of repositories for image analysis of research data used in papers, as for example:
- MyRelax, for myelin and relaxation analysis in MRI;
- qMRINet, for deep learning MRI model fitting;
- BodyMRItools, for body diffusion MR image (dMRI) processing;
- SpinFlowSim, for dMRI microvascular cancer property mapping informed by blood flow (led by Anna Voronova);
- MChepato, code/data of Grussu et al, Magn Res Med 2022 (doi: 10.1002/mrm.29174);
- Histo-μSim, data used to develop the Histo-μSim dMRI technique for non-invasive cancer cell profiling (led by Athanasios Grigoriou);
Latest articles
AK Voronova, A Grigoriou, K Bernatowicz, S Simonetti, G Serna, N Roson, M Escobar, M Vieito, P Nuciforo, R Toledo, E Garralda, E Fieremans, DS Novikov, M Palombo, R Perez-Lopez^, F Grussu^ (^ joint corresponding authors and joint senior authors). Spinflowsim: a blood flow simulation framework for histology-informed diffusion MRI microvasculature mapping in cancer. Medical Image Analysis 2025, 102(103531), doi: 10.1016/j.media.2025.103531.
C Macarro, K Bernatowicz, A Garcia-Ruiz, G Serna, C Monreal-Agüero, S Simonetti, M Figini, JF Corral, V Garay, M Vidorreta, P García-Polo García, X Merino, R Mast, N Roson, M Vieito, M Escobar, DC Alexander, R Toledo, P Nuciforo, E Garralda, R Perez-Lopez^, F Grussu^ (^ joint corresponding authors and joint senior authors). Enhancing Tumor Microstructural Quantification With Machine Learning and Diffusion-Relaxation MRI. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging 2025, 61(2): 1018-1021; doi: 10.1002/jmri.29484.
E Fokkinga, J A Hernandez-Tamames, A Ianus, M Nilsson, C M W Tax, R Perez-Lopez^, F Grussu^ (^ joint corresponding authors and joint senior authors). Advanced Diffusion-Weighted MRI for Cancer Microstructure Assessment in Body Imaging, and Its Relationship With Histology. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging 2024, 60(4): 1278-1304; doi: 10.1002/jmri.29144. Author accepted manuscript available here.
F Grussu, K Bernatowicz, I Casanova-Salas, N Castro, P Nuciforo, J Mateo, I Barba, R Perez-Lopez. Diffusion MRI signal cumulants and hepatocyte microstructure at fixed diffusion time: Insights from simulations, 9.4T imaging, and histology. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 2022, 88(1): 365-379; doi: 10.1002/mrm.29174.
Recent grants and awards
Best oral presentation award, 2023 annual meeting of the Iberian Chapter of the International Society for Magentic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), Valladolid, Spain, 3-5 July 2023.
“la Caixa” Foundation, 2022 Junior Leader Retaining fellowship: “New-generation oncological MRI (New-OncoMRI): development, validation and application”. Role: principal investigator (fellow). Duration: 09/2022-09/2025.
Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca, 2020 Beatriu de Pinós post-doctoral fellowship: “Advancing Magnetic Resonance Imaging against liver cancer”. Role: principal investigator (fellow). Duration: 01/2022-12/2024. Renounced on 29/09/2021 due to incompatibility with a “la Caixa” Junior Leader Fellowship.
3rd prize, 2021 International Society for Magentic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) MR of Cancer Study Group, Trainee competition for abstract Grussu et al, Proc ISMRM 2021, p.0699.
1st prize, “Multi-dimensional Diffusion Imaging” (MUDI) challenge at 2019 MICCAI CDMRI Workshop (Shenzhen, China, 17/10/2019). Team: Grussu F, Blumberg SB, Ianus A, Mertzanidou T, Alexander DC. Method: SARDU-Net.
