Yingchao Liu

Doctor Yingchao Liu received his PhD degree from the Department of neurosurgery, Huashan hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, under the mentorship of professor Jianhong Zhu (Cheung Kong Scholar) in 2009. Now he is a chief neurosurgeon in the Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University at Jinan, China, where he completed specialized training in both micro-invasive neurosurgery and stereotactic radiosurgery. Beside the daily neurosurgical operation, Dr Liu is also actively engaged in the field of developing brain functional MRI, Gama-knife radiosurgery treatment since 2013, and has published more than 40 peer-reviewed research articles related to the glioma, brain metastasis and functional MRI. He has frequently given invited keynote lectures at international or domestic top-level meetings. As a neurosurgeon specialized in neuro-oncology, Dr Liu makes the heaviest use of diagnostic radiological imaging, especially functional magnetic resonance imaging and has done in-depth studies in water-exchange MRI imaging of glioma and its underlying mechanism in recent 5 years. Dr Liu has accumulated extensive experience in stereotactic radiosurgery using Gamma Knife. Gamma Knife is a non-invasive procedure and is an excellent treatment option for glioma patients in proliferation stage. To address temporal-spatial tumor proliferation heterogeneity issues of glioma in a noninvasive way, Dr Liu explored the feasibility of water-exchange MRI imaging modality with foundational publication of “Shutter-Speed DCE-MRI Analyses of Human Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) Data” in J Magn Reson Imaging（2020）. Based on this theoretical foundation, he jointly cooperate with professor Bai (Zhejiang University) to investigate the underlying mechanism of AQP4 for the contribution of water-exchange MRI and validated that AQP4 is associated with tumor cell water-exchange, and the AQP4 imaging heterogeneity could be a surrogate of tumor proliferation heterogeneity. The primary research results and conclusion has been accepted and in press with Nature biomedical engineering （2022）with full long article titled “Dynamic-contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging for the detection of water exchange heterogeneity in glioma “. Until now, AQP4 molecular DCE-MRI been provided to over 600 patients at Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University and the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, offered by more than 20 radiologists or neurosurgeons, the clinician feedback has shown its great clinical translation potential.