Biography
Nola Hylton, PhD, is a Professor in Residence in the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, and Director of the Breast Imaging Research Group at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Hylton received her BS in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1979, and she obtained her PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University, California in 1985.
Dr. Hylton has been integrally involved in the development of magnetic resonance imaging for the detection, diagnosis, and staging of breast cancer. Dr. Hylton is an internationally known leader in the field of breast MRI for more than 20 years. Her search has addressed the clinical optimization and evaluation of breast MRI technology. Her current research program focuses on the development and clinical evaluation of MRI techniques for characterizing breast cancers and assessing their response to treatment. Her laboratory collaborates closely with a multi-disciplinary team of radiologists, surgeons, oncologists, and science researchers nation wide. This is to optimize MRI techniques for the clinical management of breast cancer patients.
Dr. Hylton is among the first group of scholars named the Susan G. Komen for the Cure's Scientific Advisory Council. She served as co-leader for the DHHS office of Women's Health International Working Group where she identified and addressed barriers to clinical dissemination of breast MRI. She also served as the institutional Principal Investigator of the NCI International Breast MRI Consortium, which is the first large multi-center clinical trial evaluating breast MRI for breast cancer diagnosing and staging.
Dr. Hylton has over 80 published research articles, and she has written 13 book chapters and over 130 abstracts.
Expertise:
Breast Imaging
Specialty:
Breast cancer imaging, breast MRI
Professional Interests:
Breast cancer, magnetic resonance imaging, medical imaging, breast cancer detection and diagnosis, treatment assessment, optical imaging, molecular imaging, functional imaging, small animal imaging
Education and Training:
• Bachelor of Science: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge - Chemical Engineering
• Doctor of Philosophy: Stanford University, California - Applied Physics
Mentoring Overview
Dr. Hylton, is an imaging scientist and breast cancer researcher with broad experience in the area of biomedical research. The goal of her interdisciplinary program is to develop imaging based biomarkers that can be used in combination with clinical and molecular information to individualize treatment strategies for patients with early breast cancer. She started her career developing the sequences and software that created breast MRI and has developed functional tumor volume (FTV), which is qualified as a biomarker for decision making and is the source of the longitudinal model for the adaptive design of I-SPY2. She is the imaging leader and co-PI of the I-SPY2 NCI Program project with Dr. Esserman with whom she has collaborated for 27 years and has been continuously funded by NCI for over 25 years.
Opportunities include optimization of imaging biomarkers using existing and newly developed imaging assessment to predict response and submit an Investigational Device Exemption to allow their use for clinical decision making. As well, trainees can harness national imaging networks (Cancer Imaging Atlas and the Quantitative Imaging Network) to develop imaging repositories to advance both translational and regulatory science and to better incorporate imaging science into the conduct of clinical trials and to be the catalyst for innovation and change,