Prof. Bell was awarded $1M from the NSF to advance cardiac procedures with the broader goal of replacing fluoroscopy one day. The objective of this award is to apply theoretical spatial coherence models and experimental optical analyses to understand the limits of a novel, integrated robotic-photoacoustic imaging system for guiding cardiac surgeries and interventions. This work will be completed in collaboration with Jonathan Chrispin, MD at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
More details on the basic principles of the proposed approach are available in our initial journal publication on this topic:
- Graham M, Assis F, Allman D, Wiacek A, González E, Gubbi M, Dong J, Hou H, Beck S, Chrispin J, Bell MAL, In vivo demonstration of photoacoustic image guidance and robotic visual servoing for cardiac catheter-based interventions, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 39(4):1015-1029, 2020 [pdf]
This work has also been featured in the following articles and press releases:
- SPIE Newsroom (7/24/2020): Shining new lights on photoacoustic imaging
- Photonics.com (5/Photoacoustic Imaging with Robotic Visual Servoing Could Enable Safer Cardiac Interventions
- Optics.org (4/22/2020): Photoacoustic imaging guides cardiac interventions
- LaserFocus World (4/17/2020): Photoacoustic imaging could make catheter-based heart procedures safer
- Opotek News (10/15/19): Opotek Customer Spotlight
We additionally have a pending patent for these ideas.