Research Associate

Department of Radiology, University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine.

Contact: Email: Dr Nicholas Payne Tel.: + 44 (0)1223 336892

 

Profile

Nick is the medical physicist working on the “Breast Screening – Risk Adaptive Imaging for Density” (BRAID) trial headed by Prof Fiona Gilbert. The trial spans multiple sites and imaging modalities to investigate the use of supplementary imaging for women with dense breast tissue.

Previously, while in Aberdeen and completing his PhD, Nick worked on novel Fast Field-Cycling MRI scanners developed by Prof David Lurie’s team. This work centred on the exploitation of image contrast that results from interactions between protons and coupled quadrupolar nuclei at characteristic magnetic field strengths (typically below 100 mT).

After Aberdeen, Nick left magnetic fields altogether to join King’s College London’s Nuclear Quadrupolar Resonance (NQR) group led by Dr Jamie Barras, applying NQR techniques to medicine authentication and the detection of land mines.

Now glad to be working with more palatable levels of SNR, Nick is expanding his medical physics knowledge to mammography and ultrasound.

 

Current Research

Medical physicist for the BRAID trial, a large, multicentre cohort study, investigating the impact of supplementary imaging for women with dense breasts undergoing standard breast cancer screening. The supplementary imaging methods include abbreviated magnetic resonance imaging (ABB-MRI), automated breast ultrasound (ABUS), and contrast-enhanced spectral mammography (CESM).