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The Fundacion Para La Investigacion Del Hospital Universitario La Fe De La Comunidad Valenciana (HULAFE) is a Spanish non-profit organization that carries out the scientific and research policy of the “La Fe” Health Department. The research of excellence carried out at the HULAFE is patient-oriented and was accredited as a “Health Research Institute” by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation in 2009.
The Medical Imaging Department at La Fe Hospital is currently a clinical and research Centre of excellence, performing around 1500 imaging examinations per day including participation in more than 305 clinical trials. With more than 350 professionals, the unit incorporates the specialties of Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Physics. This organization has his own research group, the Biomedical Imaging Research Group (GIBI230). This group is a multidisciplinary clinical and technical unit currently consisting of 26 contracted researchers and 14 associated collaborators. The main expertise of the group is the design of computational inputs for a more accurate and early clinical diagnosis through high-resolution medical imaging and the extraction of imaging biomarkers using radiomic methods and Artificial Intelligence algorithms to foster observational studies.
The strategic lines of research in the group are related to the development and validation of predictive clinical models together with the creation of structured repositories of images and associated clinical, pathological, and molecular information (Real World Data).
The group is led by Dr. Luís Martí-Bonmatí, belongs to the Network of Biomedical Research in Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN) and recently has been recognized as a node of the RedIB (Distributed Biomedical Imaging Network) within the National Scientific and Technical Singular Infrastructures (ICTS) of the Spanish government. The group is also certified by Carlos III Research Institute.
HULAFE is participating in all the WPs of the RadioVal project. In addition, HULAFE is the leader of WP2 (Multi-faceted evaluation framework, resources and guidelines) and has high involvement in WP5 (Multi-center clinical evaluation study).
HULAFE acts as Clinical – Data provider, having had an important role in providing the clinical data and also in performing the evaluation of AI models for the prediction of response to neoadjuvant therapy based on radiomics estimations. Therefore, HULAFE is directly involved as one of the partners that will provide and coordinate the clinical validation of the models and also will actively participate in all the interpretability methods for radiomics biomarker selection. HULAFE will also take an active role in the design and implementation of tools for continuous monitoring and traceability, including image quality and failure detection.
Dr. Luís Martí-Bonmatí is the Head of the Medical Imaging Area and Director of the Biomedical Imaging Research Group (GIBI230) at La Fe University and Polytechnic Hospital. His areas of interest are image biomarkers, and clinical innovations in medical imaging. He is the president of the European Society of Abdominal and Gastrointestinal Radiology (ESGAR), former president of the European Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology (ESMRMB).
Since 2012, is the Director of the Research Group on Biomedical Imaging (GIBI230) and the Experimental Radiology and Imaging Biomarkers Platform (PREBI), belonging to the Spanish Research Network at the Ministry of Science and Technology. He has co-founded QUIBIM (Quantitative Imaging Biomarkers in Medicine, QUIBIM), a spin-off company dedicated to radiomics data and imaging biomarkers in clinical diagnostics, research projects and clinical trials.
He is principal investigator of several national funded projects and several European research projects such as PRIMAGE, CHAEMELEON and EUCAIM, funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 funding programme and participates in others: Procancer-I and RadioVal.
Dr Luis Martí-Bonmatí is the author of over 585 publications. His Hirsch h-index is 45, having 7602 quotations (Google Scholar, 01-2020). He is Member of the Royal National Academy of Medicine in Spain.
Dr. Leonor Cerdá Alberich, Doctor in Experimental Physics. Her career began in 2013 at IFIC (University of Valencia – CSIC), working on the ATLAS experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), where she obtained her doctorate Cum Laude in Physics in 2018. She has extensive experience in data analysis, image modelling with artificial intelligence, development of image standardization algorithms, extraction of quantitative parameters, automatic segmentation, data acquisition, technical management, tutoring and dissemination. She currently works as head of the computing area and as Senior Biomedical Engineer within the GIBI230. She leads and performs tasks such as biomedical image processing and development of artificial intelligence algorithms and methodologies for the extraction of image biomarkers and prediction of relevant clinical outcomes. She is the author of more than 450 publications her Hirsch h-index is 73, having more than 19000 quotations (Google Scholar, 01-2022)
Dr. Guillermina Montoliu Director of the Radiologist Unit and Head of the Diagnostic Unit at La Fe University and Polytechnic Hospital. His areas of interest are magnetic resonance, diagnostic in radiology, medical and clinical imaging expertise and also prenatal diagnosis. She is the author of 17 publications.
Dr. Ana Santaballa Bertrán graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Valencia in 1994. After that, she completed the specialty in Medical Oncology at La Fe University and Polytechnic Hospital in Valencia. In 2009, she obtained a PhD degree from the University of Valencia.
Since May 2000, Dr Santaballa is Clinical Head of the Breast Cancer and Gynecological Tumors Section of the Medical Oncology Service at La Fe University and Polytechnic Hospital in Valencia and also, the Coordinator of the Breast Pathology Functional Unit. Since 2014, she is assistant professor of the Department of Medicine at the University of Valencia and is teaching masters and degree training courses in relation to gynecological tumors and breast cancer
In addition, Dr Santaballa is the principal investigator of phase II/III clinical trials carried out in the unit, both national and international. Furthermore, Dr Santaballa.
Former member of Board of Directors of the Spanish Ovarian Cancer Research Group (GEICO), of the Spanish Breast Cancer Research Group (GEICAM). From 2015 she has been elected member of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology (SEOM). Finally, since 2019 she coordinates the Prevention Working Group at SEOM.
Dr. Gloria Ribas Despuig, Clinical Data Scientist at the Biomedical Imaging Research Group (GIBI230) at La Fe University and Polytechnic Hospital since 2021. She graduated in Biological Sciences in 1989, master in Genetics in 1992, obtained her PhD in 1995 and Master in Bioinformatics in 2014. She had postdoctoral training abroad in the United Kingdom (Oxford and Hinxton-Cambridge from 1996-2002). Once in Spain, she joined the National Cancer Research centre (CNIO) in 2002, as a researcher in the Dept. of Human Genetic and was Senior researcher “Miguel Servet” at Clinico University Hospital-INCLIVA Research Institution at Valencia from 2009 up to 2019).
She is the author of over 85 publications in the field of cancer specially in breast, melanoma and gastric cancer. His Hirsch h-index is 38, having 9144 quotations (Google Scholar, 01-2022). She has obtained public and private national funding as Principal Investigator and also has directed 9 doctoral theses and 17 masters and degree thesis.
