SIGN Founding Members
Dr. Michał Zawadzki
PRESIDENT
Dr. Monica Pearl
VICE-PRESIDENT
Dr. Piotr Walczak
SECRETARY
Dr. Johannes Boltze
TREASURER
Dr. Miroslaw Janowski
SIGN CEO
Dr. Michał Zawadzki works as Coordinator of the Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology in the Central Clinical Hospital of Ministry of the Interior and Administration in Warsaw. He is a clinically active Neurointerventionalist whose research focused on FD stents in the setting of subarachnoid hemorrhage and use of braided stents for complex aneurysms treatment. Together with Dr. Janowski and Dr. Walczak he performed several animal experiments with intra-arterial drug delivery under real-time MRI. In 2017 he performed first-in-human endovascular procedure under real-time MRI guidance in the brain - intra-arterial drug delivery to glioblastoma. His interests have now moved towards improvement and developement of endovascular techniques in the brain, especially under real-time MRI guidance.
Dr. Johannes Boltze is a physician and neurobiologist by training and serves as a Full Professor or Neuroscience at the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK. His research is primarily focused on neurovascular disorders such as stroke and vascular dementia. Dr. Boltze’s group is particularly interested in translational aspects, being crucial for successful transition from basic science to clinical application. To this end, they develop and use disease models that realistically reflect a patient’s situation including cutting-edge diagnostic tools such as MR and PET imaging.
Dr. Miroslaw Janowski is a neurosurgeon by training and currently serves as Associate Professor at the Department of Radiology at Johns Hopkins University. The long-term interests of Dr. Janowski include minimally invasive methods of delivery of therapeutic agents, including stem cells, to the central nervous system, with a special emphasis on intra-arterial route. He pioneered utilization of molecular imaging including CEST MRI to the field of intra-arterial targeting, and currently is pursuing frontiers of other imaging modalities to further improve the precision and predictability of intra-arterial neurointerventions.
Dr. Monica Pearl is an Associate Professor in The Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Division of Interventional Neuroradiology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Director of Pediatric Neurointervention at Children’s National Medical Center. She is a clinically active Neurointerventionalist whose research focuses on intra-arterial drug delivery for CNS tumors and has expertise as the PI for two clinical trials on intra-arterial chemotherapy. Her recent contribution to this field is the creation of an imaging platform that utilizes both fluoroscopic based angiography and ultra-fast MRI for targeted blood brain barrier disruption and drug delivery in animal models.
Dr. Piotr Walczak is the Associate Professor in The Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Division of MR Research and The Institute for Cell Engineering Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research focuses on application on non-invasive imaging techniques for developing therapies for neurological disorders. His recent contribution to this field is application of ultra-fast MRI for guiding and visualization of the blood brain barrier opening procedure. This approach is utilized by Dr. Walczak’s group for improving precision and efficacy of delivering therapeutic agents to the brain parenchyma in animal brain tumor models.
