In memoriam: Laurence Clarke, visionary imaging scientist at US National Cancer Institute

SPIE mourns the death on 16 April of SPIE Fellow Laurence P. (Larry) Clarke, who was a visionary leader of the Cancer Imaging Program (CIP) at the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) and steadfast supporter of new and emerging quantitative imaging technologies that address the cancer problem.

Clarke was a visionary in the field of medical imaging for cancer with a particular focus on quantitative imaging methods across a range of imaging modalities to support clinical decision-making and cancer research. He established several NCI programs and research networks for the development and validation of quantitative imaging methods for current and next-generation imaging platforms that support multi-center clinical trials and preclinical research, most notably the Quantitative Imaging Network (QIN).

"Larry Clarke was an imaging leader and the founder of the Quantitative Imaging Network program at NCI," said SPIE Vice President Maryellen Giger (pictured at right). "He was always enthusiastic, visionary, and effective, and really moved imaging forward in today's science of precision medicine. Dr. Clarke often attended SPIE Medical Imaging and most recently was the motivator behind the 2015 LungX Challenge, which brought together NCI, SPIE, and AAPM (the American Association of Physicists in Medicine)." The LungX Challenge was a project to evaluate quantitative image-analysis methods from multiple research labs for the diagnostic classification of malignant and benign lung nodules.