Eli Vlaisavljevich
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, VA·Biomedical Engineering
Tumors that grow next to vital nerves, blood vessels and bone are hard to remove with surgery without causing serious harm. Histotripsy offers a possible alternative.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Engineering
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
histotripsy
focused ultrasound
therapeutic ultrasound
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through May 2030
What they work on
- Design a flat, high-frequency histotripsy array transducer with built-in high-resolution ultrasound imaging, and tune its pulse settings to destroy thyroid tissue while sparing nearby nerves and vessels.
- Test in living animals whether tissue-selective histotripsy can ablate the thyroid gland safely while preserving critical neighboring structures such as the laryngeal nerves, carotid artery and parathyroid glands.
- Measure the effectiveness and safety of ultrasound-guided histotripsy in pet dogs with naturally occurring thyroid tumors, a large-animal model for later human use.
- Build an osteosarcoma histotripsy system that combines a send-and-receive phased array for 3D bubble (cavitation) monitoring with CT/MRI image fusion and robotic targeting.
- Develop patient-specific histotripsy settings that completely and evenly destroy osteosarcoma tumors of mixed bone and soft-tissue makeup while sparing healthy bone, nerves and vessels, then test the system in canine osteosarcoma patients.
More about the research
It is an ultrasound therapy that uses short, intense sound pulses to create and control tiny bubbles inside tissue, a process called acoustic cavitation. These bubbles break tumor tissue down into cell-free debris without heat, radiation or incisions. Because some tissues resist this damage better than others, histotripsy can be tissue-selective. It can destroy a tumor while sparing nearby vessels and nerves. Both projects build image-guided histotripsy devices for cancers where this selectivity matters most, thyroid tumors and bone tumors. Each new system is tested in pet dogs with naturally occurring cancers before any use in people.
Why it matters
Patients with thyroid cancer or osteosarcoma often face surgery that risks nerve injury, bleeding, lost voice or airway function, or loss of a limb. A noninvasive, non-thermal and radiation-free ablation that spares nearby nerves, vessels and bone could offer a safer option, including a possible non-surgical way to save a limb in children and adults with bone cancer. Testing in dogs with natural tumors may also give veterinary patients a new treatment and speed the move toward human trials.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Kenneth B. Bader
University of Chicago, IL·Biomedical Engineering
Develop and characterize a tissue phantom, a tissue-like test material, containing an imprintable mechanophore that changes chemically under force, to record the brief stresses created by ultrasound microbubbles.
Timothy Ziemlewicz
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Biomedical Engineering
Compare strategies for limiting breathing-related liver motion during histotripsy, testing high-frequency jet ventilation against cone-beam CT-based motion modeling that adjusts the treatment prescription.
Thomas Matula
University of Washington, WA·Biomedical Engineering
Expand an animal model of skin and soft tissue abscesses to include MRSA, a drug-resistant bacterium, for testing focused ultrasound treatment.
The school
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University: 35 labs on PI Pages, $657M a year on research, 496 research doctorates a year.
More about Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
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