Lawrence Frank

Dr. Frank is a Professor of Radiology, the Director of the Center for Scientific Computation in Imaging, the Associate Director for Biomedical Applications at the UCSD Center for Functional MRI, and the Director of MR Research at the VA San Diego Healthcare System. Dr. Frank received his bachelor’s degrees in Physics and English from UC Berkeley, and his doctorate in Physics from MIT.

The focus of Dr Frank’s work is on the principles and application of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). His current research has focused on the development of pulse sequence and data analysis methods for diffusion tensor imaging with a view towards the quantitative assessment of the structure and physiology of tissues, with particular emphasis on white matter disease and musculoskeletal applications. Dr. Frank is also interested in real-time reconstruction and noise correction methods for functional MRI applications, and on the development of applications of arterial spin labeling methods to the study of muscle function and physiology. Dr. Frank has also developed methods for the application of MRI to the imaging of marine organisms, and founded the Digital Fish Library project, which incorporates advanced imaging, analysis, and visualization method for research and education in comparative marine biology.

Dr. Frank has published extensively in scientific journals devoted to the use of MRI for both basic research and clinical applications spanning such diverse fields as neuroscience, marine biology, tissue engineering, MR physics, cardiac disease, and white matter disease.