René M. Botnar

Short CV

Prof. René Botnar received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the ETH Zurich. In 1997, he joined the Cardiac MR Center at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School where his research focus was on the development and clinical validation of novel MRI sequences and molecular contrast agents for the non-invasive detection of coronary artery disease.

In 2003, René Botnar became the Scientific Director of the Cardiac MR Center at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and was appointed to Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA. In 2005, he accepted a Professorship of Biomedical Imaging at TUM where he set up a cardiac MR program with a special focus on pre-clinical and translational multi-modality imaging. At the end of 2007, he joined King’s College London where he is currently Professor of Cardiovascular Imaging and Head of the Biomedical Engineering Department. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. René Botnar is a Fellow of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Medicine and the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance and Molecular Imaging and Biology and has authored more than 325 peer-reviewed original and review articles and holds 12 patents related to MRI technology.

Selected Awards

• 2018 Fellow Award: Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR)
• 2012 Fellow Award: International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM)
• 2012 Outstanding Teacher Award: International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM)
• 2002 James E. Muller Vulnerable Plaque New Investigator Prize For Clinical Research
• 1999 Circulation article on “3D MR coronary artery imaging” ranked by the American Heart Association (AHA) as one of the top 10 advances in heart disease and stroke for 1999

Research Interests

René Botnar’s group is working on the development of novel MRI technologies (acquisition, motion correction, reconstruction) for comprehensive and non-invasive assessment of heart disease. One particular focus of his work has been the development of radiation and contrast agent free coronary MR angiography. He is are also very active in the development and validation of novel molecular contrast agents (elastin, collagen, albumin, fibrin and MPO) for the detection of high-risk plaque and heart muscle disease using MRI, PET or PET-MR.

Selected Publications

A list of publications can be found on the National Library of Medicine.