Grants

Prof. Bell received a $1.5M NIH R01 grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to support our project entitled, Photoacoustic Image Guidance of Hysterectomies. This project is motivated by the clinical challenges surrounding ureteral injury during hysterectomies, due to the close proximity of uterine arteries (which must be severed) and ureters (which must be preserved). Complications from accidental ureteral injuries include extensive repeat surgeries, complete kidney failure, sepsis, acute renal insufficiency, and patient death. The goal of this project is to establish optimal parameters to advance photoacoustic technology toward differentiation of ureters, uterine arteries, and tool tips during hysterectomies. This work will be completed in collaboration with primary co-investigator, Karen Wang, MD.

Four of our pioneering publications in this area include:

• Wiacek A, Wang KC, Wu H, Bell MAL, Photoacoustic-guided laparoscopic and open hysterectomy procedures demonstrated with human cadavers, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 40(12):3279-3292, 2021 [pdf]
• Wiacek A, Wang KC, Wu H, Bell MAL, Parking sensor-inspired approach to photoacoustic-guided hysterectomy demonstrated with human cadavers, Proceedings of SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA, March 6-11, 2021 [pdf]
• Wiacek A, Wang KC, Bell MAL, Dual-wavelength photoacoustic imaging for guidance of hysterectomy procedures, Proceedings of SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA, February 1-6, 2020 [pdf]
• Wiacek A, Wang K, Bell MAL, Techniques to distinguish the ureter from the uterine artery in photoacoustic-guided hysterectomies, Proceedings of SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA, February 2-7, 2019 [pdf]

This work was initially funded by a Johns Hopkins Discovery Award.

JHU Malone Center Announcement

Congratulations to Prof. Bell on winning the 2022 Johns Hopkins Catalyst Award! 

Awarded to 38 early-career faculty this year, across all divisions within Johns Hopkins, the Catalyst Award honors the accomplishments, creativity, originality, and academic impact of its recipients. The award provides a $75,000 grant to conduct preliminary studies with the eventual goal of redefining laser safety for photoacoustic-guided liver surgery. In addition to the grant, the award comes with mentoring opportunities and institutional recognition.  

Two of our pioneering journal publications in this area include:

• Huang J, Wiacek A,Kempski KM, Palmer T, Izzi J, Beck S, Bell MAL, Empirical Assessment of Laser Safety for Photoacoustic-Guided Liver Surgeries, Biomedical Optics Express, 12, 1205-1216, 2021 [pdf]
• Kempski K, Wiacek A, Graham M, González E, Goodson B, Allman D, Palmer J, Hou H, Beck S, He J, Bell MAL, In vivo photoacoustic imaging of major blood vessels in the pancreas and liver during surgery, Journal of Biomedical Optics, 24(12):121905, 2019 [pdf]

It is a huge honor to be a recipient of this award, and all recipients will be celebrated at a university-sponsored event taking place on October 20, 2022! Congrats again to Prof. Bell! 

JHU Hub Announcement

HEMI Announcement

Prof. Bell received a $1.4M NIH R01 grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to support our project entitled, Minimizing Uncertainty in Breast Ultrasound Imaging with Real-Time Coherence-Based Beamforming. This project is motivated by the clinical challenges surrounding ultrasound images yielding inconclusive results in a subset of patients, necessitating biopsies, aspirations, or follow-up imaging, which increase patient anxiety and places additional burdens on the time available for clinical care and the resource allocations of our healthcare system. The goal of this project is to develop new, real-time ultrasound imaging technology that will simplify clinical workflows by distinguishing fluid-filled masses from solid masses and from complex cystic and solid masses, which all appear hypoechoic in traditional ultrasound B-mode images. This work will be completed in collaboration with breast radiologists Eniola Oluyemi, MD, Kelly Myers, MD, Emily Ambinder, MD, and Lisa Mullen, MD.

Three of our pioneering journal publications in this area include:

• Wiacek A, Rindal OMH, Falomo E, Myers K, Fabrega-Foster K, Harvey S, Bell MAL, Robust Short-Lag Spatial Coherence Imaging of Breast Ultrasound Data: Initial Clinical Results, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, 66(3):527-540, 2019 [pdf]
• Wiacek A, Oluyemi E, Myers K, Mullen L, Bell MAL, Coherence-based beamforming increases the diagnostic certainty of distinguishing fluid from solid masses in breast ultrasound exams, Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, 46(6):1380-1394, 2020 [pdf]
• Wiacek A, González E, Bell MAL, CohereNet: A Deep Learning Architecture for Ultrasound Spatial Correlation Estimation and Coherence-Based Beamforming, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control, 67(12):2574-2583, 2020 [featured on journal cover] [pdf]

This work has also been featured in the following articles and press releases:

• Duke Biomedical Engineering (BME) Magazine (Spring 2019): Making the Next Wave of Imaging Tools for Cancer Diagnosis
• MIT Technology Review (8/23/16): Creating clearer imaging to spot cancer earlier and more accurately

We additionally have a pending patent for these ideas.

JHU Hub Announcement

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:

We additionally have a pending patent for these ideas.

NSF Award Announcement

ECE Department Announcement

Congratulations to Prof. Bell, who was selected to receive a competitive ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award, which is designed to help ORAU member institutions retain their best young faculty members. This award will provide seed funding for the project entitled, Robust Short-Lag Spatial Coherence Imaging of Hypoechoic Breast Masses, which focuses on development and patient testing of a novel beamforming method developed in the PULSE Lab to differentiate fluid-filled masses from solid breast masses with greater certainty than the current ultrasound beamforming methods used in breast clinics today. Fluid-filled masses are often benign, but with current uncertainty rates, many fluid-filled masses undergo the same costly, time-consuming, and anxiety-provoking diagnostic work-ups as malignant masses, which are often solid.

The long-term goal of this research is to improve breast cancer screening and detection for the benefit of patients and for the redistribution of more healthcare system resources to cancer patients who need them most.

Related Highlights:

• The PULSE Lab recently published supporting preliminary data related to this work in the journal IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control.
• A summary of this journal paper is available here.
• PULSE Lab graduate student Alycen Wiacek, first author of the above journal paper, recently won the Whiting School of Engineering Research Trainee Award for this work.
• This work is currently featured in the Spring 2019 Issue of Duke BME Magazine.

ORAU Press Release

ECE Department Announcement

Malone Center Announcement

Congratulations to Prof. Muyinatu Bell who was selected by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation as a 2019 Sloan Research Fellow in Physics. The Sloan Research Fellowships are provided to stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise. These two-year fellowships are awarded in recognition of distinguished performance and the unique potential of recipients to make substantial contributions to their field. A total of 126 Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually with only 23 awarded in Physics this year.

“Sloan Research Fellows are the best young scientists working today,” says Adam F. Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “Sloan Fellows stand out for their creativity, for their hard work, for the importance of the issues they tackle, and the energy and innovation with which they tackle them. To be a Sloan Fellow is to be in the vanguard of twenty-first century science.”

The 2019 Sloan Research Fellows each receive a two-year fellowship in the amount of $70,000 to further their research.

Sloan Foundation Press Release

JHU Hub Announcement

ECE Department Announcement

Malone Center Announcement

Whiting School of Engineering Announcement

HEMI Announcement

Prof. Bell received the NIH Trailblazer Award from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to support our project entitled, A Machine Learning Alternative to Beamforming to Improve Ultrasound Image Quality for Interventional Access to the Kidney. This project is motivated by the clinical challenges surrounding artifacts in ultrasound images, specifically artifacts caused by multipath scattering and acoustic reverberations (which occur when imaging through the abdominal tissue of overweight and obese patients or visualizing metallic surgical tools). There are no existing solutions to eliminate these artifacts based on today’s signal processing techniques. The goal of this project is to step away from conventional signal processing models and instead learn from raw ultrasound channel data examples with state-of-the-art deep learning techniques that differentiate artifacts from true signals to deliver a new class of clearer, easier-to-interpret ultrasound images that we call CNN-Based images. This work will be completed in collaboration with Austin Reiter, PhD and Kelvin Hong, MD.

Two of our pioneering publications in this area include:

• D Allman, A Reiter, MAL Bell, Photoacoustic source detection and reflection artifact removal enabled by deep learning, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 37(6):1464-1477, 2018 [pdf | datasets | code]
• AA Nair, T Tran, A Reiter, MAL Bell, A deep learning based alternative to beamforming ultrasound images, IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, April 15-20, 2018 [pdf]
• Additional related publications are featured here

This work has also been featured in the following articles and press releases:

• SWE Magazine (1/13/17): AI’s Forthcoming Transformation of Medicine
• JHU ECE Department News (3/12/18): Faculty Q&A: Muyinatu (Bisi) Bell
• Deep Learning in Healthcare Summit (5/25/17): Interview with Muyinatu Bell

We additionally have a pending patent for these ideas.

ECE Department Announcement

Whiting School of Engineering Announcement

LCSR Announcement

Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare Announcement

HEMI Announcement

JHU Hub Announcement

JHU Engineering Magazine

Johns Hopkins Magazine

Congratulations to PULSE Lab graduate student Michelle Graham, who was selected to receive the NSF GRFP Fellowship!

ECE Department Announcement

Congratulations to Prof. Bell for being selected to receive the NSF CAREER Award. The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.  The objective of Prof. Bell’s proposal entitled CAREER: Technical & Theoretical Foundations for Photoacoustic-Guided Surgery is to apply optical analyses, spatial coherence theory, and independent resolution models to describe fundamental performance limits of photoacoustic-based navigation during robotic and nonrobotic surgery.

ECE Department Announcement

Malone Center Announcement

WSE Announcement

JHU Hub Announcement

LCSR Announcement

Congratulations to PULSE Lab grad student Joshua Shubert, who was selected to receive the NSF GRFP Fellowship!

ECE Department Announcement

JHU Hub Announement