The Department of Design and Manufacturing (DM) organized a talk by Prof. Himanshu Shekhar, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, and Prof. Karla
Mercado-Shekhar, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences and Engineering, both from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, India on 28th March 2025, 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM.Title: Active and Passive Image Strategies for Monitoring Therapeutic UltrasoundAbstract: The past two decades have seen rapid strides in therapeutic ultrasound, which could enable improved healthcare outcomes in a variety of pathologies.
Advances in therapy guidance and monitoring are critical for enhancing the safety and efficacy of therapy. I will discuss our efforts to advance image guidance approaches for monitoring cavitation-mediated ultrasound therapy. Histotripsy is a focused ultrasound-based therapeutic approach that relies on cavitation for ablating tissues. Cavitation also plays a role in triggered therapeutic delivery. I will discuss both active and passive imaging approaches for visualizing cavitation activity.
Advanced filtering approaches, nonlinear beamforming, and sensing approaches will be reported for improving therapeutic monitoring. Lastly, I will highlight our current efforts to translate this technology to the clinic. The talk will end with a brief review of a few representative projects being pursued in the Medical Ultrasound Engineering Lab at IIT Gandhinagar.
Bio: Prof. Himanshu Shekhar is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, India, where he co-leads the Medical Ultrasound Engineering (MUSE) Laboratory. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology, and a Master’s and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rochester, U.S.A. Dr. Shekhar trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, U.S.A. His research is focused on ultrasound-mediated therapy, molecular imaging, and sensing. His research has been recognized with the F. V. Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship, Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Med-into-Grad Fellowship, best paper awards from the Acoustical Society of America, the Har Govind Korana Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award, and the Star Ambassador Lectureship Award from the IEEE UFFC Society. Dr. Shekhar currently serves on the Technical Committee on Biomedical Acoustics of the Acoustical Society of America, and IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium Technical Committee.
Title: Enabling ultrasound techniques for tissue characterization
Abstract: Ultrasound-based tissue characterization can provide information about tissue structure and mechanical properties for improved diagnosis. In this talk, I will discuss our team’s efforts towards advancing viscoelastography and quantitative ultrasound parametric imaging approaches based on raw ultrasound data for characterizing tumors and imaging anisotropic tissues. Shear wave viscoelastography exploits the shear wave generated by an ultrasound beam and extracts the viscoelastic properties of tissues from the frequency dependence of the measured wave velocity. Specifically, I will discuss our work on validating shear wave viscoelastography on viscoelastic tissue-mimicking phantoms. I will also discuss a complementary approach based on quantitative ultrasound techniques that can quantify the spatial organization and density of tissue structures. I will report the feasibility of differentiating glioblastoma tumors from normal brain tissue ex vivo using analysis of ultrasound scatterer data, with potential applications in intraoperative brain tumor imaging. The talk will conclude based on future research directions in ultrasound imaging.
Bio: Prof. Karla Mercado-Shekhar is an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar. She received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Rochester, as a Provost’s Fellow. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and a recipient of a postdoctoral research supplement grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Prof. Karla co- leads the Medical Ultrasound Engineering (MUSE) Lab where her research focuses on ultrasound tissue characterization, viscoelasticity imaging, and drug delivery. She was recognized as a Scholar by the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society and delivered the Distinguished RCBU Alumni Lecture at the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound in Rochester, NY, USA. She currently serves on the Editorial Boards of the journals IEEE Transactions in Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control and Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, and the Technical Program Committees of the IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium and the Biomedical Acoustics Technical Committee of the Acoustical Society of America.
