Research

Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) is an imaging modality that enables visualization of blood perfusion with high temporal resolution and without the use of ionizing radiation. In the presence of an ultrasound wave, ultrasound contrast agents (microbubbles) undergo volumetric oscillations that provide nonlinear signal for contrast enhancement or violent micromechanical forces upon exposure to sufficiently large acoustic pressures that can be harnessed therapeutically. My group will develop novel contrast agents for imaging and therapy, and new methodology for improved contrast imaging & cavitation-mediated treatments. 

A unique aspect of ultrasound is that it is one of the few truly “all-in-one” imaging modalities that can be integrated into every aspect of a non-invasive therapy: it can enable diagnostic imaging for precise targeting, deliver high-energy acoustic waves for treatment, and allow real-time monitoring of cavitation emissions to assess therapeutic safety and/or success. My group will design new schemes of image-guided intervention in which ultrasound contrast imaging, cavitation-mediated therapeutic ultrasound, and cavitation imaging can all be interleaved into a single control system that is automated and user-independent.

Biofilms are sessile communities of microbes that promote both physical and functional changes that protect bacteria from their environment. Additionally, bacterial colonization and impaired immune function frequently coexist, stalling tissue repair and leading to non-healing infections. Non-invasive biofilm debridement with utlrasound is a promising method to improve antibiotic therapies; however, it is still unclear how the maximally effective antibiofilm parameters influence the host immune response or whether dispersed bacteria are effectively cleared by the immune system or persist to form downstream infections. My group will develop in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo models of bacterial infection as a platform to understand the host response to cavitation-mediated antibiofilm therapies.

The use of focused ultrasound opens avenues to enhance the host immune response to infection and injury through direct mechanical stimulation of immune cells. To further explore these mechanisms, my group will evaluate ultrasound parameters that induce a variety of biomechanical forces with or without cavitation nuclei (such as shear force, compression, radiation force, or cavitation-induced microjetting) on single cells in suspension and/or spatially isolated within standing waves versus cells seeded within environments with increasing stiffness.