MAE Seminar Series: “Rethinking Preclinical Ultrasound, From The Bottom Up”

Abstract:

Noninvasive imaging technologies enable clinicians and scientists to detect, stage, and longitudinally evaluate disease without invasive procedures. At the preclinical research level, in vivo imaging can play an important role in elucidating disease mechanisms and developing novel therapeutics, but these tools tend to be underutilized due to complexity, expense, and a strong reliance on cross-sectional histological endpoints to answer biological questions. However, with the rising costs of drug development (driven in large part by the high failure rates of human trials), and mandates from the scientific community to reduce/refine animal testing, the need to challenge the status quo of preclinical research workflows has never been stronger. Herein, we present a novel “automated” preclinical ultrasound system and demonstrate its use for a variety of rodent models spanning numerous pathologies. Ultrasound, like MRI, is a soft tissue imaging technique that does not require ionizing radiation, however several factors make ultrasound less appealing to preclinical researchers including extensive training requirements, limited field-of-view, low throughput, and large user variability. By combining robotics with ultrasound in a new form factor, we can mitigate many of these challenges and provide a solution to preclinical researchers that is user-friendly, accessible, and well-positioned to be integrated with other imaging modalities in the future.

Tune in at 10 a.m. Friday, February 3, 2022 to watch live. 

Bio:

Tomek Czernuszewicz is the Director of Ultrasound Imaging of SonoVol (a PerkinElmer company), a Durham-based life science company creating imaging tools that advance disease research and therapeutic discovery. Joining the company in its early startup days in 2016 as CTO, Tomek has overseen the design, validation, and launch of two state-of-the-art benchtop in vivo imaging platforms that utilize robotic ultrasound for rapid scanning of small animals. During his tenure at SonoVol, Tomek has been awarded numerous small business innovation research (SBIR) grants from the NIH and has effectively translated research ideas into products. SonoVol was acquired by PerkinElmer in 2022. Tomek received his Ph.D. from the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at UNC and NCSU, with his graduate research focusing on novel ultrasound imaging methods for atherosclerotic plaque characterization. Prior to graduate school, Tomek worked as a software engineer at Zargis Medical, a Princeton-based startup developing computer-aided auscultation solutions. Zargis, with its partner 3M Littmann, was awarded Innovation of the Year in 2009 from Popular Science magazine for its “smart” stethoscope design and analysis software. Zargis’ assets were later acquired by 3M in 2011.