Giovanni J. Ughi

Giovanni J. Ughi (born Padova, Italy), engineer and scientist, is one of the inventors of multimodality optical coherence tomography (OCT) and Laser-induced fluorescence molecular imaging, pioneering a first-in-man study of coronary arteries during his work at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The results of his work, combining two imaging technologies, may better identify dangerous coronary plaques, responsible for coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction.

He also was one of the pioneers of targeted molecular imaging of human atherosclerosis, determining the use of molecular agents (e.g., indocyanine green (ICG)-enhanced near-infrared fluorescence) to illuminate high-risk features of human atherosclerotic plaques, arterial inflammation and plaque progression, and for the identification of unhealed stents at higher risk of stent thrombosis.

Ughi also made significant contributions to the development of image processing and AI methods for the automated analysis of intracoronary optical coherence tomography (OCT) images, contributing to the widespread adoption of intracoronary OCT imaging technology. He is recognized for the development of methods for the automatic quantification of stent and disease characteristics on intracoronary optical coherence tomography images.

He has authored over fifty papers in peer-reviewed scientific international journals.