Home/CIIM Faculty/Luca Ferrarini
Luca Ferrarini

Luca Ferrarini
Associate Professor

Dr. Luca Ferrarini has received a M.Sc. in computer engineering (cum laude) by the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. The master thesis was carried on at The Burnham Institute in San Diego, in collaboration with the University of California San Diego (UCSD).
He has received his Ph.D. in computer science (with honor) from the Leiden University (The Netherlands), and more specifically from the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC). The Ph.D. project focused on the development of new technologies for the analysis of brain MR images, to detect shape changes due to neurodegenerative diseases.

After concluding his Ph.D. study, he applied for and won a personal grant to support his post-doctoral project. As a post-doctoral fellow at the LUMC, he further specialized in the analysis of functional MR images and complex network theory, studying brain connectivity at rest and in patients with neurological disorders.
In a later stage Dr. Ferrarini moved into the field of genome analysis, applying statistical analysis to the modeling of gene regulatory networks, specifically for studying the blood brain barrier and the mechanisms that can lead to its disruption and to brain diseases such as the cerebral cavernous malformation.
Dr. Ferrarini has also gained deep knowledge of the IT industry, working for over 10 years as project manager and data analytics consultant in leading IT companies, both in Italy and Cyprus.

He is currently associate professor at the Applied Information Technologies (AIT) program at CIIM where he teaches three courses and pursues research in applied computer science (with particular focus on data analysis and machine learning algorithms).
He has published several research papers in international peer-reviewed journals and conferences and worked as reviewer for many international journals and conferences, such as BMC Bioinformatics, The Journal of Alzheimer Disease, Transactions on Information Technology in BioMedicine, IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics, and others.

He has very good teaching experience in computer science, both at undergraduate and graduate level.

CV Dr Luca Ferrarini (pdf)

Publications in International Journals (peer-reviewed)

  1. Malinverno M, Corada M, Ferrarini L, Formicola L, Marazzi G, Sassoon D, Dejana E, Peg3/PW1 is a marker of a subset of vessel associated endothelial progenitors, Stem Cells, 2017
  2. Bravi L, Rudini N, Cuttano R, Giampietro C, Maddaluno L, Ferrarini L, Adams RH, Corada M, Boulday G, Tournier-Lasserve E, Dejana E, Lampugnani MG, Sulindac metabo- lites decrease cerebrovascular malformations in CCM3-knockout mice, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015
  3. Maddaluno L, Rudini N, Cuttano R, Bravi L, Giampietro C, Corada M, Ferrarini L, Orsenigo F, Papa E, Boulday G, Toumier-Lasserve E, Chapon F, Richichi C, Retta SF, Lampugnani MG, Dejana E, EndMT contributes to the onset and progression of cerebral cavernous malformations, Nature, 2013
  4. Paolinelli R, Corada M, Ferrarini L, Devraj K, Artus C, Czupalla CJ, Rudini N, Mad- daluno L, Papa E, Engelhardt B, Couraud PO, Liebner S, Dejana E, Wnt activation of immortalized brain endothelial cells as a tool for generating a standardized model of the blood brain barrier in vitro, PLoS One, 2013
  5. Palm WM, Ferrarini L, van der Flier WM, Westendorp RG, Bollen EL, Middelkoop HA, Milles JR, van der Grond J, Buchem MA, Cerebral atrophy in elderly with subjective memory complaints, J. Magn. Reson. Imaging, 2012.
  6. Steph Busking, Charl P. Botha, L. Ferrarini, J. Milles, Frits H. Post, Image-based render- ing of intersecting surfaces for dynamic comparative visualization, The Visual Computer, 2011 27:347-363.
  7. S.J. van den Bogaard, E.M. Dumas, L. Ferrarini, J. Milles, M.A. van Buchem, J. van der Grond, R.A. Roos, Shape analysis of subcortical nuclei in Huntington’s disease, global versus local atrophy – Results from the TRACK-HD study, J Neurol Sci. 2011 Aug 15;307(1- 2):60-8. Epub 2011 May 31.
  8. F. Admiraal-Behloul, L. Ferrarini, J. Milles, J.H.C. Reiber, Recent Advances in MRI Based Volumetry and Morphometry for AD Diagnosis in Human, Current Medical Imaging Reviews, 2011, 7, 34-42.
  9. L.W. de Jong, L. Ferrarini, J. van der Grond, J.R. Milles, J.H.C. Reiber, R.G. Wes- tendorp, E.L. Bollen, H.A. Middelkoop, M.A. van Buchem, Shape abnormalities of the striatum in Alzheimer’s disease, J. Alzheimers Dis., 23(1), pages 49-59, Jan 1 (2011)
  10. L. Ferrarini, I.M. Veer, B. van Lew, N.Y.L. Oei, M.A. van Buchem, J.H.C. Reiber, S.A.R.B. Rombouts, J. Milles, ”Non-parametric model selection for subject-specific topolog- ical organization of resting-state functional connectivity”, NeuroImage, in press doi:10.1016/ j.neuroimage.2011.02.028 (2010).
  11. I. Veer, C. Beckmann, M. van Tol, L. Ferrarini, J. Milles, D. Veltman, A. Aleman, M.A. van Buchem, N.J. van der Wee and S.A. Rombouts, Whole brain resting-state analysis reveals decreased functional connectivity in major depressive disorder, Front. Syst. Neu- rosci., 4, pii: 41, (Sep. 2010).
  12. L. Ferrarini, A.E.H. Scheenstra, G.B. Frisoni, M. Muskulus, M. Pievani, R. Ganzola, J.H.C. Reiber, J. Dijkstra, J. Milles, Morphological changes in the hippocampus predict MCI conversion to AD: an MR-based comparison between Moore-Rayleigh and permutation tests, Supplement to Alzheimer’s & Dementia – The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, 5(4) – Suppl. 1, pages 25 and 368 (2009).
  13. Luca Ferrarini, Giovanni B. Frisoni, Michela Pievani, Johan H.C. Reiber, Rossana Ganzola, Julien Milles, Morphological hippocampal markers for automated detection of Alzheimer disease and MCI converters in MR images, Journal of Alzheimer Disease 17(3) (2009), 643-659.
  14. Ferrarini L., Veer I.M., Baerends E., van Tol M.J., Renken R.J., van der Wee N.J.A., Veltman D., Aleman A., Zitman F.G., Penninx B.W.J.H., van Buchem M.A., Reiber J.H.C., Rombouts S.A.R.B., Milles J., ”Hierarchical functional modularity in the resting- state human brain”, Human Brain Mapping 30(7) July 2009.
  15. BM Verbist, L Ferrarini, JJ Briaire, F van Poucke, F Admiraal-Behloul, H Olofsen, JHC Reiber, JHM Frijns, Anatomical considerations of cochlear morphology and its implications for insertion trauma in cochlear implant surgery, Otology Neurotology 30(4), 471-477, June 2009.
  16. Ferrarini L, Verbist B.M., Olofsen H, Vanpouke F., Frijns J.H.M., Reiber J.H.C., Admiraal- Behloul F., ”Autonomous Virtual Robot for 3-Dimensional Medical Image Exploration: Application to Micro-CT Cochlear Images”, Artificial Intelligence In Medicine (AIIM) 43(1), 1-15, 2008.
  17. Ferrarini L, Palm WM, Olofsen H, van der Landen R, Jan Blauw G, Westendorp RG, Bollen EL, Middelkoop HA, Reiber JH, van Buchem MA, Admiraal-Behloul F, ”MMSE scores correlate with local ventricular enlargement in the spectrum from cognitively normal to Alzheimer disease”, NeuroImage 39 (4), 1832-1838, 2008.
  18. Luca Ferrarini, Walter M. Palm, Hans Olofsen, Roald van der Landen, Mark A. van Buchem, Johan H.C. Reiber, Faiza Admiraal-Behloul, ”Ventricular Shape Biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease in Clinical MR Images”, Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (MRM) 59 (2), 260-267, 2008.
  19. Luca Ferrarini, Hans Olofsen, Walter M. Palm, Mark A. van Buchem, Johan H.C. Reiber, Faiza Admiraal-Behloul, ”GAMEs: Growing and Adaptive Meshes for Fully Automatic Shape Modeling and Analysis”, Medical Image Analysis, 11(3), 302-314, 2007.
  20. L. Ferrarini, W.M. Palm, H. Olofsen, M.A. van Buchem, J.H.C. Reiber, F. Admiraal- Behloul, ”Shape differences of the brain ventricles in Alzheimer’s disease”, NeuroImage 32 (3), pp. 1060-1069, 2006.
  21. L. Ferrarini, L. Bertelli, J. Feala, A.D. McCulloch, and G. Paternostro, ”A more efficient search strategy for aging genes based on connectivity”, Bioinformatics 21 (3), pp. 338-348, 2005.

Publications in International Conference Proceedings (peer-reviewed)

  1. B. Vissers, A. Dixhoorn, L. Ferrarini, J. Milles, C. Botha, Visual analysis of integrated resting state functional brain connectivity and anatomy, Eurographics workshop on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine (EG VCBM) 2010.
  2. L. Ferrarini, G.B. Frisoni, M. Pievani, R. Ganzola, J.H.C. Reiber, J. Milles, Morphological analysis in epidemiological studies using Growing and Adaptive MEshes: Application to subcortical structures in AD, Proc. of IEEE ISBI Conference, Rotterdam 2010.
  3. L. Ferrarini, G.B. Frisoni, M. Pievani, R. Ganzola, J.H.C. Reiber, J. Milles, Robustness and sensitivity of Hotelling’s T 2-based permutation tests for selection of 3D morphological markers, Proc. of IEEE ISBI Conference, Rotterdam 2010.
  4. L. Ferrarini, H. Olofsen, W.M. Palm, M.A. van Buchem, J.H.C. Reiber, F. Admiraal- Behloul, ”Growing Cell Neural Networks for Fully Automatic Shape Modeling”, Proc. Med- ical Image Understanding and Analysis (MIUA), 2006, pp. 146-150 (ISBN 1 901727 31 6)
  5. L. Ferrarini and H. Olofsen and M.A. van Buchem and J.H.C. Reiber and F. Admiraal- Behloul, ”Growing Cell Neural Networks: A Pattern Recognition Framework for Fully Automatic Shape Modeling”, ASCI Conference 2006, Lommel – Belgium
  6. Luca Ferrarini, Hans Olofsen, Johan H.C. Reiber, and Faiza Admiraal-Behloul, ”A Neu- roFuzzy Controller for 3D Virtual Centered Navigation in Medical Images of Tubular Struc- tures”, International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks – ICANN 2005, LNCS 3697, pp 371-376, Warsaw – Poland
  7. Luca Ferrarini, Hans Olofsen, Mark A. van Buchem, Johan H.C. Reiber, and Faiza Admiraal-Behloul, ”Fully automatic shape modeling using growing cell neural networks”, International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Interven- tion – MICCAI 2005, LNCS 3750, pp. 451-458, Palm Springs – U.S.A.
  8. Ferrarini Luca, Hans Olofsen, Johan H.C. Reiber, Faiza Admiraal-Behloul, ”Exploration of 3D Medical Images of Tubular Structures: A NeuroFuzzy Controller for Virtual Centered Navigation”, ASCI Conference 2005, Heijen – The Netherlands
  9. Faiza Admiraal-Behloul, Boudewijn .P.F. Lelieveldt, Luca Ferrarini, Hans Olofsen, Rob van der Geest and J.H.C Reiber, ”A Virtual Exploring Mobile Robot for Left Ventricle Con- tour Tracking”, International Joint Conference on Neural Networks 2004 (IJCNN 2004), Budapest – Hungary

Book Chapters

  1. L. Ferrarini, H. Olofsen, J.H.C. Reiber, F. Admiraal-Behloul, ”Autonomous Virtual Mo- bile Robot for the Exploration of 3D Medical Images”, In Medical Robots – Advanced Robotic Systems (ISBN 978-3-902613-18-9)

Abstracts in International Conference

  1. N. Baka, W.J. Nissen, B.L. Kaptein, T. van Walsum, L. Ferrarini, J.H.C. Reiber, B.P.F. Lelieveldt, ”Correspondence free 3D statistical shape model fitting to sparse x-ray projec- tions”, SPIE Vol. 6623, February 2010, San Diego, CA United States.
  2. I. Veer, N. van der Wee, C. Beckmann, E. Baerends, M. van Tol, L. Ferrarini, J. Milles, A. Aleman, D. Veltman and S. Rombouts, ”P.2.b.015 Whole brain resting-state analysis reveals decreased connectivity in major depressive disorder”, European Neuropsychophar- macology, Volume 19, Supplement 3 on the 22nd ECNP Congress, September 2009.
  3. B.M. Verbist, L. Ferrarini, J.J. Briaire, A. Zarowski, J.H.M. Frijns, ”New insights in insertion trauma during cochlear implant surgery based on 3-dimensional image exploration of the cochlea”, ESHNR, October 2009, Verona, Italy.
  4. B.M. Verbist, J.J. Briaire, L. Ferrarini, R. Joemai, J. Snel-Bongers, J.H.M. Frijns, ”Pre- and postoperative assessment of cochlear implantees by means of multidetector row com- puted tomography (MD-CT)”, Conference on implantable auditory prostheses, July 12-17 2009, Lake Tahoe, California (U.S.A.)
  5. S.J.A. van den Bogaard, E.M. Dumas, L. Ferrarini, J. Milles, J. van der Grond, R.A.C. Roos, The Track-HD Investigation group, ”Shape Analysis of Subcortical Nuclei in Hunt- ington’s disease”, World Congress on Huntington’s disease 2009, Vancouver (Canada)
  6. L. Ferrarini, A.E.H. Scheenstra, G.B. Frisoni, M. Muskulus, M. Pievani, R. Ganzola, J.H.C. Reiber, J. Dijkstra, J. Milles, ”Morphological changes in the hippocampus predict MCI conversion to AD: an MR-based comparison between Moore-Rayleigh and permutation tests”, International Conference on Alzheimer Disease (ICAD) 2009. Vienna (Austria)
  7. L. Ferrarini, I. Veer, E. Baerends, M-J. van Tol, N.J.A. van der Wee, M.A. van Buchem, J.H.C. Reiber, S.A.R.B. Rombouts, and J. Milles, ”Consistency of Global and Local Effi- ciency across Frequency Bands in MR Functional Connectivity”, Human Brain Mapping Conference – HBM 2009. San Francisco – California (U.S.A.)
  8. I.M. Veer, C.F. Beckmann, E. Baerends, M-J. van Tol, L. Ferrarini, J. Milles, D.J. Veltman, A. Aleman, M.A. van Buchem, N.J. van der Wee, and S.A.R.B. Rombouts, ”Reduced functional connectivity in major depression: a whole brain study of multiple resting-state networks”, Human Brain Mapping Conference – HBM 2009. San Francisco – California (U.S.A.)
  9. E. Baerends, R. Zoethout, C.F. Beckmann, I.M. Veer, T. van Osch, J. Milles, L. Ferrarini, J. Gross, R. Post, M.A. van Buchem, J. van Gerven, and S.A.R.B. Rombouts, ”Morphine and ethanol alter functional connectivity of the brain at rest”, Human Brain Mapping Conference – HBM 2009. San Francisco – California (U.S.A.)
  10. L.W. de Jong, L. Ferrarini, J. van der Grond, J. Milles, E.L.E.M. Bollen, R.J.G. West- endorp, H.A.M. Middelkoop, J.H.C. Reiber, M.A. van Buchem, ”Regional shape changes of striatum and thalamus in Alzheimer’s disease: a morphometircal MRI study”, Inter- national Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine – ISMRM 2009. Honolulu – Hawaii (U.S.A.)
  11. L. Ferrarini, W.M. Palm, H. Olofsen, J. van der Grond, M.A. van Buchem, J.H.C. Reiber, F. Admiraal-Behloul, ”Significantly asymmetric patterns of periventricular atrophy in Alzheimer Disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment, and Memory Complainers detected on Clinical MR images”, International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine – ISMRM 2008. Toronto – Canada
  12. L. Ferrarini, H. Olofsen, W.M. Palm, M.A. van Buchem, J.H.C. Reiber, F. Admiraal- Behloul, ”Ventricular Shape Biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease in Clinical MR images”, International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine – ISMRM 2007. Berlin – Germany
  13. H. Olofsen, L. Ferrarini, W.M. Palm, M.A. van Buchem, J.H.C. Reiber, F. Admiraal- Behloul, ”Local Volumetric Analysis of the Brain Ventricles in Alzheimer’s Disease using MRI”, International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine – ISMRM 2007. Berlin – Germany
  14. L. Ferrarini, W.M. Palm, H. Olofsen, M.A. van Buchem, J.H.C. Reiber, F. Admiraal- Behloul, ”Significant local shape differences of the brain ventricles in Alzheimer’s patients compared to healthy elderly”, International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine – ISMRM 2006. Seattle – U.S.A.
  • BI405 Database Management and Cloud Computing
  • AT600 Digital Transformation in Business and Organizations
  • AT800 Project Management in Information Technology