Research Summary

Soonmee Cha, MD, is a Professor In Residence of Radiology and Neurological Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the Diagnostic Radiology Residency Program Director, and she is Radiology's Vice-Chair of Education. Dr. Cha has focused on the importance of validating the usefulness of MRI as a tool for brain tumor diagnosis, monitoring and identifying therapy endpoints. She obtained her medical degree from Georgetown University, School of Medicine, Washington in 1991. She completed her Diagnostic Radiology residency from North Shore University Hospital, Cornell University Medical College in New York, followed by a fellowship in Neuroradiology from New York University Medical Center in 1998.

Dr. Cha is committed to a career dedicated to patient-oriented research in the field of brain tumor imaging. She believes that non-invasive imaging technology will make important contributions to the health of patients through improving the specificity and precision of diagnosis and treatment monitoring, which will have significant impact on therapeutic decisions.

The main focus of Dr. Cha’s research is to identify reliable surrogate markers of prognosis and therapeutic efficacy by quantitative MR imaging methods in patients with brain tumors. She believes that by using MR imaging techniques such perfusion MR imaging, diffusion-weighted imaging, and 3-dimensional proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging, detection of changes in tumor angiogenesis, cellularity, invasion, tumor hypoxia, and metabolic burden can be accurately measured and will provide more specific information about patient’s early response to therapy in the context of tumor growth.

Dr. Cha has been awarded several NIH grants, serving as Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigator on many NIH projects. She has published 87 articles, and she has written 77 peer-reviewed articles and 4 book chapters.

Expertise:
Neuroradiology

Specialty:
Brain tumor imaging

Professional Interests:
Brain tumor, brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme, gliomas, primary cerebral lymphoma, angiogenesis, hypoxia, invasion, perfusion MR imaging, diffusion-weighted imaging, molecular imaging, biomarkers, microarray, genomics, neural stem cell

Education and Training:
• Medical School: Georgetown University, College of Arts and Sciences, Washington, District of Columbia
• Internship: Georgetown University Fairfax Hospital, Falls Church
• Residency: North Shore University Hospital, Cornell University Medical College, Manhasset, New York - Diagnostic Radiology
• Fellowship: New York University Medical Center, New York - Neuroradiology

Research Funding

Education

Georgetown University, Washington, DC, B.S., 1983-1987, Chemistry
Georgetown University, Washington, DC, M.D., 1987-1991, Medicine
Georgetown University Hospital, Washington, DC, Internship, 1991-1992, Transitional Internship
North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, NY, Residency, 1992-1996, Diagnostic Radiology
New York University Medical Center, New York, NY, Fellowship, 1996-1998, Neuroradiology

Honors & Awards

  • April 2000
    ASNR Outstanding Presentation Award in General Neuroradiology at the 38th Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA.
  • 1995
    Certificate of Merit Award, Scientific exhibit at RSNA
  • 1994
    Certificate of Merit Award, Scientific exhibit at RSNA

Selected Publications

  1. Barrios J, Porter E, Capaldi DPI, Upadhaya T, Chen WC, Perks JR, Apte A, Aristophanous M, LoCastro E, Hsu D, Stone PH, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Valdes G, Jiang F, Maddalena M, Ballangrud A, Prezelski K, Lin H, Sun JY, Aldin MAK, Chau OW, Ziemer B, Seaberg M, Sneed PK, Nakamura JL, Boreta LC, Fogh SE, Raleigh DR, Chew J, Vasudevan H, Cha S, Hess C, Fragoso R, Shultz DB, Pike L, Hervey-Jumper SL, Tsang DS, Theodosopoulos P, Cooke D, Benedict SH, Sheng K, Seuntjens J, Coolens C, Deasy JO, Braunstein S, Morin O. Author Correction: Multi-institutional atlas of brain metastases informs spatial modeling for precision imaging and personalized therapy. Nat Commun. 2025 Jun 02; 16(1):5096.  View on PubMed
  2. Hu LS, Smits M, Kaufmann TJ, Knutsson L, Rapalino O, Galldiks N, Sundgren PC, Cha S Reply to "Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast MRI for Evaluation of Patients With High-Grade Glioma: Need for Multicenter Clinical Trial Validation".  View on PubMed
  3. Barrios J, Porter E, Capaldi DPI, Upadhaya T, Chen WC, Perks JR, Apte A, Aristophanous M, LoCastro E, Hsu D, Stone PH, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Valdes G, Jiang F, Maddalena M, Ballangrud A, Prezelski K, Lin H, Sun JY, Aldin MAK, Chau OW, Ziemer B, Seaberg M, Sneed PK, Nakamura JL, Boreta LC, Fogh SE, Raleigh DR, Chew J, Vasudevan H, Cha S, Hess C, Fragoso R, Shultz DB, Pike L, Hervey-Jumper SL, Tsang DS, Theodosopoulos P, Cooke D, Benedict SH, Sheng K, Seuntjens J, Coolens C, Deasy JO, Braunstein S, Morin O. Multi-institutional atlas of brain metastases informs spatial modeling for precision imaging and personalized therapy. Nat Commun. 2025 May 15; 16(1):4536.  View on PubMed
  4. Guney E, Mirchia K, Schmid S, Capper D, Meinhardt J, Cha S, Lee H, Brathwaite C, Altman N, Sloan EA, Sayah A, McGrail K, Caliskan I, Terry M, Perez S, Bollen AW, Tihan T, Pekmezci M, Perry A. CNS angiocentric stromal tumor (CAST), PDGFRA-mutant, a novel entity histologically mimicking meningioangiomatosis and radiologically correlating with giant Virchow-Robin spaces. Acta Neuropathol. 2025 Apr 11; 149(1):33.  View on PubMed
  5. Hu LS, Smits M, Kaufmann TJ, Knutsson L, Rapalino O, Galldiks N, Sundgren PC, Cha S. Advanced Imaging in the Diagnosis and Response Assessment of High-Grade Glioma: AJR Expert Panel Narrative Review. AJR Am J Roentgenol. 2025 Jan; 224(1):e2330612.  View on PubMed
  6. Zhou MH, Cha S. MYCN-amplified spinal ependymomas: a rare aggressive subtype. Illustrative cases. J Neurosurg Case Lessons. 2025 Jan 06; 9(1).  View on PubMed
  7. Cha SM, Nho JH, Ga IH, Kim YH A Novel Technique With Buttress Plating for Comminuted Base Fractures of the Proximal Phalanx.  View on PubMed
  8. Isikbay M, Caton MT, Narvid J, Talbott J, Cha S, Calabrese E. Deep learning segmentation-based bone removal from computed tomography of the brain improves subdural hematoma detection. J Neuroradiol. 2024 Nov 08; 52(1):101231.  View on PubMed
  9. Terry M, Nguyen MP, Tang V, Guney E, Bharani KL, Dahiya S, Choutka O, Borys E, Reis G, Blevins L, Aghi MK, Kunwar S, DeGroot J, Raleigh DR, Pekmezci M, Bollen AW, Cha S, Joseph NM, Perry A. High-Grade Progression, Sarcomatous Transformation, and/or Metastasis of Pituitary Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (PitNENs): The UCSF Experience. Endocr Pathol. 2024 Dec; 35(4):338-348.  View on PubMed
  10. Fields BKK, Calabrese E, Mongan J, Cha S, Hess CP, Sugrue LP, Chang SM, Luks TL, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Rauschecker AM, Rudie JD. The University of California San Francisco Adult Longitudinal Post-Treatment Diffuse Glioma MRI Dataset. Radiol Artif Intell. 2024 Jul; 6(4):e230182.  View on PubMed
  11. Cha SM, Lee SH, Ga IH, Kim YH, Lee SH. Usefulness of multiple bioabsorbable Mg screws/K‑wires for comminuted radial head fractures. Int Orthop. 2024 Aug; 48(8):2165-2177.  View on PubMed
  12. Cha SM, Lee SH, Ga IH, Kim YH. Locking plate fixation in comminuted coronoid fractures with partial loss of the articular cartilage - Of basal-1 type according to the O'Driscoll classification. Injury. 2024 Jun; 55(6):111550.  View on PubMed
  13. Cha SM, Shin HD, Ga IH, Kim YH Certain fracture patterns in children/adolescents would be better called 'Barton equivalent' fractures.  View on PubMed
  14. Reddy S, Cha S, LaHue SC. Clinical Reasoning: A 22-Year-Old Man With Multifocal Brain and Osseous Lesions. Neurology. 2023 Nov 27; 101(22):1025-1031.  View on PubMed
  15. Kulac I, Yenidogan I, Oflaz Sozmen B, Baygul A, Cha S, Pekmezci M, Tihan T. Pathological perspectives in pilocytic astrocytomas: Extent of resection as the sole critical factor for recurrence-free survival, and the challenge of evaluating conclusions derived from limited data. Free Neuropathol. 2023 Jan; 4.  View on PubMed
  16. Isikbay M, Carrodeguas E, Tatem A, Cha S. Challenges of Preparing for Diagnostic Radiology Call. Radiology. 2023 09; 308(3):e230421.  View on PubMed
  17. Cha SM, Kim YK, Shin HD, Park JY, Lee SH. Importance of Whole-Body Scintigraphy or Positron Emission Tomography for Early Detection of Femoral Lesions in Breast Cancer Patients Treated with Bisphosphonates. Clin Orthop Surg. 2023 Aug; 15(4):659-667.  View on PubMed
  18. Kersch CN, Muldoon LL, Claunch CJ, Fu R, Schwartz D, Cha S, Starkey J, Neuwelt EA, Barajas RF. Multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging discerns glioblastoma immune microenvironmental heterogeneity. Neuroradiol J. 2023 Jun 12; 19714009231163560.  View on PubMed
  19. LaHue SC, Guterman EL, Mikhail M, Li Y, Cha S, Richie MB. Clinical and Radiographic Characteristics of Nocardia vs Non-Nocardia Brain Abscesses. Neurol Clin Pract. 2023 Apr; 13(2):e200134.  View on PubMed
  20. Young JS, Al-Adli N, Scotford K, Cha S, Berger MS. Pseudoprogression versus true progression in glioblastoma: what neurosurgeons need to know. J Neurosurg. 2023 09 01; 139(3):748-759.  View on PubMed

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