Yao Ding, Ph.D.
Department of Radiation Physics, Division of Radiation Oncology
Present Title & Affiliation
Primary Appointment
Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Physics - Patient Care, Division of Radiation Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Dual/Joint/Adjunct Appointment
Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Physics - Patient Care, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Education & Training
Degree-Granting Education
| 2012 | University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Dallas, Texas, US, Radiological Sciences, Ph.D |
Postgraduate Training
| 2012-2017 | Research Fellowship, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas |
Licenses & Certifications
| 2022 | Texas Medical Board |
| 2022 | The American Board of Radiology |
| 2019 | The American Board of Medical Physics |
Experience & Service
Other Professional Positions
Research Scientist, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 2017 - 2019
Professional Memberships
Selected Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles
- Mackin, DS, Cifter, G, Zlateva, Y, Wang, J, Ding, Y, ul Hassan, MS, Wang, Z, Diagaradjane, P, Guan, F, Salzillo, TC, Krafft, SP, Li, J, Tom, MC, Ghia, AJ, Briere, TM. Clinical Workflow of Spine Stereotactic Radiotherapy and Radiosurgery. Cancers 18(3), 2026. e-Pub 2026. PMID: 41681825.
- Ding, Y, Salzillo, TC, Yeboa, DN, Tom, MC, Wang, Z, Diagaradjane, P, Subashi, ED, Yang, J, Swanson, T, Beckham, TH, Wang, C, Ghia, AJ, Briere, TM, Wang, J, Lathuilière, F, Cloake, S, Han, EY. Optimizing Motion Management and Baseline Shifts in Magnetic Resonance-Guided Spine Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy. Cancers 17(16), 2025. e-Pub 2025. PMID: 40867326.
- Zhao, Y, Cozma, A, Ding, Y, Perles, LA, Reiazi, R, Chen, X, Kang, AM, Prajapati, S, Yu, H, Subashi, ED, Brock, K, Wang, J, Beddar, S, Lee, B, Mohammedsaid, M, Cooper, S, Westley, RL, Tree, A, Mohamad, O, Hassanzadeh, CJ, Mok, H, Choi, S, Tang, C, Yang, J. Upper Urinary Tract Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy Using a 1.5 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Guided Linear Accelerator. Cancers 16(23), 2024. e-Pub 2024. PMID: 39682173.
- Leary, OP, Zepecki, JP, Pizzagalli, M, Toms, SA, Liu, DD, Suita, Y, Ding, Y, Wang, J, He, R, Chung, C, Fuller, C, Boxerman, JL, Tapinos, NI, Gilbert, RJ. Tumor-Associated Tractography Derived from High-Angular-Resolution Q-Space MRI May Predict Patterns of Cellular Invasion in Glioblastoma †. Cancers 16(21), 2024. e-Pub 2024. PMID: 39518107.
- El-Habashy DM, Wahid KA, He R, McDonald B, Mulder SJ, Ding Y, Salzillo T, Lai SY, Christodouleas J, Dresner A, Wang J, Naser MA, Fuller CD, Mohamed ASR, Head J, Development Cooperative NRT. Dataset of weekly intra-treatment diffusion weighted imaging in head and neck cancer patients treated with MR-Linac. Sci Data 11(1):487, 2024. e-Pub 2024. PMID: 38734679.
- Wang L, Ding Y, Bruno TL, Stafford RJ, Lin E, Bathala TK, Sanders JW, Ning MS, Ma J, Klopp AH, Venkatesan A, Wang J, Martirosyan KS, Frank SJ. A Novel Positive-Contrast Magnetic Resonance Imaging Line Marker for High-Dose-Rate (HDR) MRI-Assisted Radiosurgery (MARS). Cancers (Basel) 16(10), 2024. e-Pub 2024. PMID: 38792000.
- Chen X, Zhao Y, Court LE, Wang H, Pan T, Phan J, Wang X, Ding Y, Yang J. SC-GAN: Structure-completion generative adversarial network for synthetic CT generation from MR images with truncated anatomy. Comput Med Imaging Graph 113:102353, 2024. e-Pub 2024. PMID: 38387114.
- Zhao Y, Wang H, Yu C, Court LE, Wang X, Wang Q, Pan T, Ding Y, Phan J, Yang J. Compensation cycle consistent generative adversarial networks (Comp-GAN) for synthetic CT generation from MR scans with truncated anatomy. Med Phys 50(7):4399-4414, 2023. e-Pub 2023. PMID: 36698291.
- Head J, Development Cooperative NR, Mohamed ASR, Abusaif A, He R, Wahid KA, Salama V, Youssef S, McDonald BA, Naser M, Ding Y, Salzillo TC, AboBakr MA, Wang J, Lai SY, Fuller CD. Prospective validation of diffusion-weighted MRI as a biomarker of tumor response and oncologic outcomes in head and neck cancer: Results from an observational biomarker pre-qualification study. Radiother Oncol 183:109641, 2023. e-Pub 2023. PMID: 36990394.
- Naser MA, Wahid KA, Ahmed S, Salama V, Dede C, Edwards BW, Lin R, McDonald B, Salzillo TC, He R, Ding Y, Abdelaal MA, Thill D, O'Connell N, Willcut V, Christodouleas JP, Lai SY, Fuller CD, Mohamed ASR. Quality assurance assessment of intra-acquisition diffusion-weighted and T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging registration and contour propagation for head and neck cancer radiotherapy. Med Phys 50(4):2089-2099, 2023. e-Pub 2023. PMID: 36519973.
- Ng SP, Cardenas CE, Bahig H, Elgohari B, Wang J, Johnson JM, Moreno AC, Shah SJ, Garden AS, Phan J, Gunn GB, Frank SJ, Ding Y, Na L, Yuan Y, Urbauer D, Mohamed ASR, Rosenthal DI, Morrison WH, MacManus MP, Fuller CD. Changes in Apparent Diffusion Coefficient (ADC) in Serial Weekly MRI during Radiotherapy in Patients with Head and Neck Cancer: Results from the PREDICT-HN Study. Curr Oncol 29(9):6303-6313, 2022. e-Pub 2022. PMID: 36135064.
- Wahid KA, He R, McDonald BA, Anderson BM, Salzillo T, Mulder S, Wang J, Sharafi CS, McCoy LA, Naser MA, Ahmed S, Sanders KL, Mohamed ASR, Ding Y, Wang J, Hutcheson K, Lai SY, Fuller CD, van Dijk LV. Intensity standardization methods in magnetic resonance imaging of head and neck cancer. Phys Imaging Radiat Oncol 20:88-93, 2021. e-Pub 2021. PMID: 34849414.
- Wang J, Salzillo T, Jiang Y, Mackeyev Y, David Fuller C, Chung C, Choi S, Hughes N, Ding Y, Yang J, Vedam S, Krishnan S. Stability of MRI contrast agents in high-energy radiation of a 1.5T MR-Linac. Radiother Oncol 161:55-64, 2021. e-Pub 2021. PMID: 34089753.
- McDonald BA, Vedam S, Yang J, Wang J, Castillo P, Lee B, Sobremonte A, Ahmed S, Ding Y, Mohamed ASR, Balter P, Hughes N, Thorwarth D, Nachbar M, Philippens MEP, Terhaard CHJ, Zips D, Böke S, Awan MJ, Christodouleas J, Fuller CD, Head MC, Site Group NT. Initial Feasibility and Clinical Implementation of Daily MR-Guided Adaptive Head and Neck Cancer Radiation Therapy on a 1.5T MR-Linac System: Prospective R-IDEAL 2a/2b Systematic Clinical Evaluation of Technical Innovation. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 109(5):1606-1618, 2021. e-Pub 2021. PMID: 33340604.
- Lee J, Steinmann A, Ding Y, Lee H, Owens C, Wang J, Yang J, Followill D, Ger R, MacKin D, Court LE. Radiomics feature robustness as measured using an MRI phantom. Sci Rep 11(1):3973, 2021. e-Pub 2021. PMID: 33597610.
- Head J, Development Cooperative NRT, Mohamed ASR, He R, Ding Y, Wang J, Fahim J, Elgohari B, Elhalawani H, Kim AD, Ahmed H, Garcia JA, Johnson JM, Stafford RJ, Bankson JA, Chambers MS, Sandulache VC, Fuller CD, Lai SY. Quantitative Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI Identifies Radiation-Induced Vascular Damage in Patients With Advanced Osteoradionecrosis: Results of a Prospective Study. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 108(5):1319-1328, 2020. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 32712257.
- Slagowski JM, Ding Y, Aima M, Wen Z, Fuller CD, Chung C, Debnam JM, Hwang KP, Kadbi M, Szklaruk J, Wang J. A modular phantom and software to characterize 3D geometric distortion in MRI. Phys Med Biol 65(19):195008, 2020. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 32531763.
- McCulloch MM, Cazoulat G, Ford AC, Elgohari B, Bahig H, Kim AD, Elhalawani H, He R, Wang J, Ding Y, Mohamed AS, Polan DF, King JB, Peterson CB, Ohrt AN, Fuller CD, Lai SY, Brock KK. Biomechanical modeling of radiation dose-induced volumetric changes of the parotid glands for deformable image registration. Phys Med Biol 65(16):165017, 2020. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 32320955.
- Cardenas CE, Mohamed ASR, Yang J, Gooding M, Veeraraghavan H, Kalpathy-Cramer J, Ng SP, Ding Y, Wang J, Lai SY, Fuller CD, Sharp G. Head and neck cancer patient images for determining auto-segmentation accuracy in T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging through expert manual segmentations. Med Phys 47(5):2317-2322, 2020. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 32418343.
- Elhalawani H, Awan MJ, Ding Y, Mohamed ASR, Elsayes AK, Abu-Gheida I, Wang J, Hazle J, Gunn GB, Lai SY, Frank SJ, Ginsberg LE, Rosenthal DI, Fuller CD. Data from a terminated study on iron oxide nanoparticle magnetic resonance imaging for head and neck tumors. Sci Data 7(1):63, 2020. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 32081849.
- Ding Y, Mason RP, McColl RW, Yuan Q, Hallac RR, Sims RD, Weatherall PT. Simultaneous measurement of tissue oxygen level-dependent (TOLD) and blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) effects in abdominal tissue oxygenation level studies. J Magn Reson Imaging 38(5):1230-6, 2013. e-Pub 2013. PMID: 23749420.
Patient Reviews
CV information above last modified March 26, 2026