Zoom link (active when the seminar starts)

Dr. Adam D. Maxwell, University of Washington
2:00PM  ~  Thursday, January 27, 2022
440 Goodwin Hall

Expanding the capabilities of focused ultrasound surgery through control of mechanical effects

Noninvasive image-guided therapies such as focused ultrasound are increasingly being adopted in clinical scenarios in favor of surgical procedures. These methods employ heating or radiation to render a pathologic tissue such as a tumor biologically nonviable but structurally intact. However, they cannot address a number of important diseases, for example, an obstructing blood clot in the vessel of a stroke patient. My research aims to develop new focused ultrasound techniques that employ mechanical effects of ultrasound to structurally modify or disintegrate soft tissues and calcifications. This seminar will present investigations on how ultrasound waves interact with tissue structures to concentrate stress in these materials, including elastic wave generation, acoustic radiation force, and bubble nucleation. Through this work, new image-guided therapies have been developed and tested to more precisely and efficiently fragment urinary stones, liquefy blood clots, and destroy other pathologic tissues. These methods may eventually be combined to a versatile platform technology to perform complex noninvasive procedures and expand the role of focused ultrasound surgery in medicine.

Adam D. Maxwell is a Research Assistant Professor of Urology and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington. He received a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan. His research investigates physical mechanisms, new devices, and applications for focused ultrasound therapies. He is the inventor of a new noninvasive technology to fragment kidney stones, ‘burst wave lithotripsy’, which was developed over the last 8 years and is now undergoing clinical trials. For his contributions to therapeutic ultrasound, he recently received the R. Bruce Lindsay Early Career Award from the Acoustical Society of America and the Frederic Lizzi Early Career Award from the International Society for Therapeutic Ultrasound.

Host: Professor Saied Taheri