Ewert Bengtsson

Ewert Bengtsson är professor emeritus i datoriserad bildanalys med inriktning mot biomedicinska tillämpningar. Har varit verksam på området sedan 1973. Var med och byggde upp ämnet vid Uppsala universitet och skapade Centrum för bildanalys, CBA, 1988. Har sedan dess varit engagerad i CBA:s utveckling till en ledande bildanalysenhet. Är särskilt engagerad i att utveckla bildanalyssystem för tidig upptäckt, diagnostik och gradering av cancer.

My main research interest is in developing computerized image analysis for medical applications. I have been working in that field since my Master Thesis work in 1973-74. That work was dealing with Analysis of cell images using video and computer technology. My doctoral thesis in 1977 was dealing with the same subject. I have since then supervised 15 doctoral theses in that field. My most recently supervised PhD on that topic, Patrik Malm, worked on developing computerized analysis of PAP-smears for early detection of cervical cancer, the same problem as I was addressing in my PhD thesis some 40 years ago. My early research resulted in a working, but far from cost-effective, solution. Since then commercial systems have appeared on the market but they are also very expensive and only used in rich countries. This time we are trying to develop a new generation system, cost effective enough to be used also in countries such as India where we have close collaboration.

Most of the previous work has been related to cancer research but now we are also turning into modern cell biology problems. Digital imaging cytometry is a field of rapidly growing importance. One of my former PhD students, Carolina Wählby, is now professor of Quantitative Microscopy and is very successfully leading this research in close collaboration with the Science for Life Laboratory project.

But cell image analysis is not my only interest. I also work with other medical images e.g. from radiology (CT, MR) or nuclear medicine (PET, SPECT). We have also had a project on using haptic interaction to supplement the visual one in exploring medical images in particular for planning of maxillofacial surgery. Professor Ingela Nyström is continuing work on that project. We also have collaboration with Örjan Smedby at KTH on whole body angiographic images. This work recently resulted in a PhD thesis by Kristina Lidayová.

Our research at CBA also covers many other things. The first full professor in image analysis at the centre, starting 1993, was Gunilla Borgefors. She is well established in the field of digital geometry where she has made several fundamental contributions. Those methods are used in many of our applied projects both by her students and mine. One of her former students, Robin Strand is currently head of our Vi2 division. He and Filip Malmberg are working in close collaboration with the Radiology Department at Uppsala University developing fundamental medical image analysis algorithms.

A non-medical application area is our project on reading old handwritten documents headed by Anders Brun in collaboration with Anders Hast and several other researchers. We also have research on computer graphics and visualisation at Uppsala University with Stefan Seipel and Anders Hast.

For a much more complete account of our research I refer to the other web-pages at www.cb.uu.se e.g. the personal web-pages of my colleagues and students and in particular to our annual report which each year lists all our ongoing projects, publications, collaboration partners and other activities.