Skip to main content
UltraCon 2024 Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Presentation Icons
Learning Lab Additional Fee
Learning Lab Additional Fee
Learing Lab
Learing Lab
Industry
Industry
Back

Basic Science and Instrumentation
Session Type: Educational Session

Molecular and Cellular Ultrasound

Wednesday, April 10, 2024
9:00am – 10:30am  
Location:Governor's D - 4th Floor
CE: 1.5

The past several decades have seen the development of molecularly targeted contrast agents. New advances have used biology to produce ultrasound contrast agents. This educational session will explore these cutting-edge technologies.

Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) has become an increasingly popular technique for multi-scale anatomical, functional, and molecular imaging by acoustically detecting the optical absorption contrast in biological tissues. In my talk, I will focus on several technological advancements in PAI that have enabled a broad range of biomedical applications in life sciences. First, PAI has overcome the penetration limit by utilizing advanced light delivery and ultrasound detection, allowing for deep-tissue imaging at clinically relevant depths in large animal models and potentially humans. Second, innovative scanning technologies and deep-learning models have significantly accelerated microscopic PAI by 1000-times with a large field of view. This speed-up facilitates the monitoring of highly dynamic or motion-prone processes, such as functional brain activities, placenta development, and glassfrog transparency. Third, using novel fabrication technologies in optics, acoustics, and electronics, we have developed handheld, wearable, and head-mounted PAI devices that offers high throughput, flexibility and accessibility, providing real-time feedback in awake or free-moving animals and humans. Lastly, by incorporating genetically-encoded photoacoustic probes with photoswitching, we have improved the detection sensitivity and specificity of PAI by more than 1000 times, enabling highly-reliable imaging of malignant cancer, tissue hypoxia, and neuronal activities. Meanwhile, we have recently developed a deep-penetration ultrasound volumetric printing technology, which can overcome the penetration limit of traditional bioprinting technologies that rely on the light-induced cross-linking, allowing for through-tissue construction of complex 3D structures inside the heart, liver, and bone. By highlighting these technological advancements, my talk aims to update the recent progress made in PAI and ultrasound printing, as well as their potential for a wide range of biomedical applications in life sciences.

Learning Objectives:

  • Describe emerging methods to detect molecular composition and track cells in vivo.
  • Explain the applications for molecular and cellular imaging in the clinic.
  • Connect emerging research with clinical needs.

Presentations:

  • 9:00am – 9:30am  
    From Light to Sound: Breaking the Limits in Photoacoustic Imaging and Ultrasound Bioprinting

    Junjie Yao, PhD (he/him/his) – Duke University

  • 9:30am – 10:00am  
    Multimodal Ultrasound and Photoacoustic Imaging of Placental Molecular Structure

    Carolyn Bayer, PhD (she/her/hers) – Tulane University

    Junjie Yao, PhD (he/him/his) – Duke University

    Jerzy O. Szablowski, PhD (he/him/his) – Rice University

    Carolyn Bayer, PhD (she/her/hers) – Tulane University