James Ewing, Ph.D.

Director, Neurology NMR Facility
Henry Ford Hospital
2799 West Grand Blvd.
Detroit MI 48202
(313) 916-2620
[email protected]

James Ewing Ph.D. is Senior Bioscientific Staff in the Henry Ford Hospital Departments of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Adjunct Professor in the Oakland University Department of Physics, and Associate Professor in the Wayne State University Medical School Department of Neurology. Dr. Ewing has a long history of study in a wide range of physiological measurements in the brain of experimental animals and humans, as indicated by his publication record (see below).

Recent academic interests include the quantification of cerebral permeability in rat models cerebral tumor using MRI contrast agents. These measurements have led to significant discoveries in the response of cerebral tumors to therapeutic interventions, including radiotherapy (RT), with subsequent NIH funding.  Dr. Ewing identified a unique procedure for estimating the compression of normal tissue in the rim of a cerebral tumor, and showed that the exudate flux from the tumor was strongly related to that compression.  This led to a productive collaboration with other research experts in soft tissue mechanics and flows, and to the possible extension of the work to a prediction of drug distribution in cerebral tumors.  This work is ongoing. Also ongoing is a study of water balance in hydrocephalus, in a groundbreaking examination of the root causes of hydrocephalus.

Other expertise includes measurement of cerebral blood flow using arterial spin labeling, and MRI Magnetization Transfer in acute and chronic ischemic infarction in small animals. Dr. Ewing has technical expertise in applied mathematics and scientific applications programming. He has developed, maintained, and documented a suite of reconstruction, curve-fitting, and filtering programs for MRI data acquired on Neurology MRI consoles. 

1. Rey JA, Ewing JR, Sarntinoranont M. MRI-based Mechanical Model Predicts Heterogeneous Structural Stress and Interstitial Flow in Glioma. Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting; Orlando, FL: Biomedical Engineering Society; 2021.
2. Rey JA, Ewing JR, Sarntinoranont M. A computational model of glioma reveals opposing, stiffness-sensitive effects of leaky vasculature and tumor growth on tissue mechanical stress and porosity. Biomech Model Mechanobiol. 2021;20(5):1981-2000. Epub 2021/08/08. doi: 10.1007/s10237-021-01488-8. PubMed PMID: 34363553.
3. Nagaraja TN, Elmghirbi R, Brown SL, Rey JA, Schultz L, Mukherjee A, Cabral G, Panda S, Lee IY, Sarntinoranont M, Keenan KA, Knight RA, Ewing JR. Imaging acute effects of bevacizumab on tumor vascular kinetics in a preclinical orthotopic model of U251 glioma. NMR Biomed. 2021;34(7):e4516. Epub 2021/04/06. doi: 10.1002/nbm.4516. PubMed PMID: 33817893.
4. Nagaraja TN, deCarvalho AC, Brown SL, Griffith B, Farmer K, Irtenkauf S, Hasselbach L, Mukherjee A, Bartlett S, Valadie OG, Cabral G, Knight RA, Lee IY, Divine GW, Ewing JR. The impact of initial tumor microenvironment on imaging phenotype. Cancer Treat Res Commun. 2021;27:100315. Epub 2021/02/12. doi: 10.1016/j.ctarc.2021.100315. PubMed PMID: 33571801.
5. Nagaraja TN, Bartlett S, Farmer KG, Cabral G, Knight RA, Valadie OG, Brown SL, Ewing JR, Lee IY. Adaptation of laser interstitial thermal therapy for tumor ablation under MRI monitoring in a rat orthotopic model of glioblastoma. Acta Neurochir (Wien). 2021. Epub 2021/09/24. doi: 10.1007/s00701-021-05002-y. PubMed PMID: 34554269.
6. LoCastro E, Paudyal R, Mazaheri Y, Hatzoglou V, Oh JH, Lu Y, Konar AS, Vom Eigen K, Ho A, Ewing JR, Lee N, Deasy JO, Shukla-Dave A. Computational Modeling of Interstitial Fluid Pressure and Velocity in Head and Neck Cancer Based on Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Feasibility Analysis. Tomography. 2020;6(2):129-38. Epub 2020/06/18. doi: 10.18383/j.tom.2020.00005. PubMed PMID: 32548289; PMCID: PMC7289251.
7. Magdoom KN, Delgado F, Bohorquez AC, Brown AC, Carney PR, Rinaldi C, Mareci TH, Ewing JR, Sarntinoranont M. Longitudinal evaluation of tumor microenvironment in rat focal brainstem glioma using diffusion and perfusion MRI. J Magn Reson Imaging. 2018. doi: 10.1002/jmri.26315. PubMed PMID: 30318760.
8. Elmghirbi R, Nagaraja TN, Brown SL, Keenan KA, Panda S, Cabral G, Bagher-Ebadian H, Divine GW, Lee IY, Ewing JR. Toward a noninvasive estimate of interstitial fluid pressure by dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI in a rat model of cerebral tumor. Magn Reson Med. 2018. doi: 10.1002/mrm.27163. PubMed PMID: 29524243.
9. Nejad-Davarani SP, Bagher-Ebadian H, Ewing JR, Noll DC, Mikkelsen T, Chopp M, Jiang Q. An extended vascular model for less biased estimation of permeability parameters in DCE-T1 images. NMR Biomed. 2017;30(6). doi: 10.1002/nbm.3698. PubMed PMID: 28211961; PMCID: PMC5489235.
10. Nejad-Davarani SP, Bagher-Ebadian H, Ewing JR, Noll DC, Mikkelsen T, Chopp M, Jiang Q. A parametric model of the brain vascular system for estimation of the arterial input function (AIF) at the tissue level. NMR Biomed. 2017;30(5). doi: 10.1002/nbm.3695. PubMed PMID: 28211963; PMCID: PMC5489236.
11. Nagaraja TN, Elmghirbi R, Brown SL, Schultz LR, Lee IY, Keenan KA, Panda S, Cabral G, Mikkelsen T, Ewing JR. Reproducibility and relative stability in magnetic resonance imaging indices of tumor vascular physiology over a period of 24h in a rat 9L gliosarcoma model. Magn Reson Imaging. 2017;44:131-9. doi: 10.1016/j.mri.2017.09.003. PubMed PMID: 28887206.
12. Elmghirbi R, Nagaraja TN, Brown SL, Panda S, Aryal MP, Keenan KA, Bagher-Ebadian H, Cabral G, Ewing JR. Acute Temporal Changes of MRI-Tracked Tumor Vascular Parameters after Combined Anti-angiogenic and Radiation Treatments in a Rat Glioma Model: Identifying Signatures of Synergism. Radiat Res. 2017;187(1):79-88. doi: 10.1667/RR14358.1. PubMed PMID: 28001908; PMCID: PMC5381817.
13. Liu LJ, Brown SL, Ewing JR, Ala BD, Schneider KM, Schlesinger M. Estimation of Tumor Interstitial Fluid Pressure (TIFP) Noninvasively. PLoS One. 2016;11(7):e0140892. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0140892. PubMed PMID: 27467886; PMCID: PMC4965107.
14. Ewing JR, Nagaraja TN, Aryal MP, Keenan KA, Elmghirbi R, Bagher-Ebadian H, Panda S, Lu M, Mikkelsen T, Cabral G, Brown SL. Peritumoral tissue compression is predictive of exudate flux in a rat model of cerebral tumor: an MRI study in an embedded tumor. NMR Biomed. 2015. doi: 10.1002/nbm.3418. PubMed PMID: 26423316.
15. Bagher-Ebadian H, Dehkordi ANV, Alamgharibi R, Nagaraja T, Nathanson D, Soltanian-Zadeh H, Brown S, Moradi H, Arbab AS, Ewing JR. TMIC-05DCE-MR PHARMACOKINETIC MODEL EVOLUTION TECHNIQUE FOR PREDICTION OF INTERSTITIAL FLUID PRESSURE IN EMBEDDED TUMORS. Neuro-Oncology. 2015;17(suppl 5):v215. doi: 10.1093/neuonc/nov236.05.
16. Chwang WB, Jain R, Bagher-Ebadian H, Nejad-Davarani SP, Iskander AS, Vanslooten A, Schultz L, Arbab AS, Ewing JR. Measurement of rat brain tumor kinetics using an intravascular MR contrast agent and DCE-MRI nested model selection. J Magn Reson Imaging. 2014. Epub 2014/01/15. doi: 10.1002/jmri.24469. PubMed PMID: 24421265.
17. Aryal MP, Nagaraja TN, Keenan KA, Bagher-Ebadian H, Panda S, Brown SL, Cabral G, Fenstermacher JD, Ewing JR. Dynamic contrast enhanced MRI parameters and tumor cellularity in a rat model of cerebral glioma at 7 T. Magn Reson Med. 2014;71(6):2206-14. Epub 2013/07/24. doi: 10.1002/mrm.24873. PubMed PMID: 23878070; PMCID: 3870046.
18. Aryal MP, Nagaraja TN, Brown SL, Lu M, Bagher-Ebadian H, Ding G, Panda S, Keenan K, Cabral G, Mikkelsen T, Ewing JR. Intratumor distribution and test-retest comparisons of physiological parameters quantified by dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI in rat U251 glioma. NMR Biomed. 2014;27(10):1230-8. Epub 2014/08/16. doi: 10.1002/nbm.3178. PubMed PMID: 25125367; PMCID: 4160378.
19. Ewing JR, Bagher-Ebadian H. Model selection in measures of vascular parameters using dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI: experimental and clinical applications. NMR Biomed. 2013;26(8):1028-41. Epub 2013/07/25. doi: 10.1002/nbm.2996. PubMed PMID: 23881857; PMCID: 3752406.
20. Bagher-Ebadian H, Jain R, Nejad-Davarani SP, Mikkelsen T, Lu M, Jiang Q, Scarpace L, Arbab AS, Narang J, Soltanian-Zadeh H, Paudyal R, Ewing JR. Model selection for DCE-T1 studies in glioblastoma. Magn Reson Med. 2012;68(1):241-51. Epub 2011/12/01. doi: 10.1002/mrm.23211. PubMed PMID: 22127934; PMCID: 3292667.
21. Ewing JR, Brown SL, Lu M, Panda S, Ding G, Knight RA, Cao Y, Jiang Q, Nagaraja TN, Churchman JL, Fenstermacher JD. Model selection in magnetic resonance imaging measurements of vascular permeability: Gadomer in a 9L model of rat cerebral tumor. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab. 2006;26(3):310-20.

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