Brief Biography

Dr. Macgowan received his undergraduate degree in Honours Physics from the University of British Columbia (1989-1993). His graduate training was from the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto, where he received an M.Sc. and a PhD on the topic of blood flow measurement using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Dr. Macgowan was recruited to The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in 2000 to develop a research program in cardiovascular imaging. He is now a Senior Scientist in the Division of Physiology & Experimental Medicine and the Department of Diagnostic Imaging at SickKids, as well as an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Medical Biophysics and Medical Imaging at the University of Toronto.

Research Interests

My research involves the development of new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods to improve the detection and evaluation of cardiovascular disease in children. In particular, I am interested in the measurement of blood flow and vascular function in congenital heart disease, and the translation of these methods into clinical practice. Previous work in my lab has involved the study of rapid (real-time) MRI measurements of blood flow, optimization of contrast-enhanced pulmonary MR angiography in children, and image-processing methods to segment and classify pulmonary veins versus arteries. We have also investigated methods to assess pulmonary vascular impedance non-invasively using velocity-sensitive MR imaging, to better understand how patients with pulmonary hypertension respond to therapy.

Recent work in my lab has focused on cardiovascular physiology in the developing human fetus. Using advanced MRI methods, we are mapping the distribution of blood flow throughout the feto-placental circulation and measuring the oxygen saturation of blood supplied to the fetus. Critical to this work is the creation of an image processing approach (metric-optimized gating) that has enabled the first dynamic MR images of the fetal heart and blood flow.

External Funding

• Canadian Institutes of Health Research:  MRI Assessment of Pulmonary Vascular Remodelling and Vasoconstriction in Pulmonary Hypertension
• Ontario Research Fund:  Imaging for Cardiovascular Therapeutics
• Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada:  Cerebral Venous Hemodynamics in Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis

Achievements

• Honourable Mention, Clinical Science Category (co-author) – International Paediatric Radiology Congress and Exhibition, 2011.
• Richard Knill Research Competition Finalist (co-author) – 61st Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society Meeting, 2005.
• Richard Rowe Research Award (co-author) – Canadian Cardiovascular Congress, 2004.
• Caffey Award, Best Clinical Paper (co-author) – Society for Pediatric Radiology, 2003.

Publications

Jansz MS, Seed M, van Amerom JFP, Wong D, Grosse-Wortmann L, Yoo SJ, Macgowan CK. Metric Optimized Gating for Fetal Cardiac MRI. Magn. Reson. Med. 64(5): 1304-1314 (2010)

Macgowan CK, Liu GKC, Sussman MS, van Amerom JFP, Wright GA. Self-Gated Fourier Velocity Encoding. Magn. Reson. Imaging.  28(1): 95-102 (2010)

van Amerom JFP, Wu S-P, Vidarsson L, Tessler R, Belik J, Macgowan CK. Regional Pulmonary Blood Flow: Comparison of Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MR Perfusion and Phase-Contrast MR. Magn. Reson. Med.  61(5), 1249-1254 (2009)

Macgowan CK, Kellenberger CJ, Detsky JS, Roman K, Yoo S-J. Real-Time Magnetic Resonance Velocimetry: An In-Vivo Evaluation. J. Magn. Reson. Imag. 21:297–304 (2005)

Vidarsson L, Helm E, O’Brodovich H, Macgowan CK. Visualizing Water Clearance in the Lung with MRI. Magn. Reson. Med.  60(1), 230-235 (2008)

Yoo S-J, Kellenberger CJ, Roman KS, Al-Habshan F, Branson H, Sun A-M, Macgowan CK. Magnetic Resonance Evaluation of Pulmonary Circulation in Children. Prog. Pediatr. Cardiol.  22, 211-223 (2006)