FIP Seminar: "Bringing Photoacoustic Tomography to Patients: From High-Resolution Whole-Body Imaging to Wearable Solutions"

Presenter: Dr. Lei Li, Assistant Professor of Electrical Computer Engineering and Bioengineering, Rice University

This talk will cover the recent development of photoacoustic imaging technology, including a benchtop imager, termed single-impulse panoramic photoacoustic computed tomography (SIP-PACT), and its preclinical applications. SIP-PACT has also been scaled up for breast cancer diagnosis with improved sensitivity and specificity. SIP-PACT has also revealed various molecular contrasts and demonstrated wide-range biomedical applications, including tracking circulating tumor cells, imaging photoswitchable proteins, and guiding microrobots for drug delivery. In addition, to shape the benchtop PACT systems toward portable and wearable devices with low cost without compromising the imaging performance, we have recently developed photoacoustic topography through an ergodic relay, a high-throughput imaging system with significantly reduced system size, complexity, and cost, enabling wearable applications. As a rapidly evolving imaging technique, photoacoustic imaging promises preclinical applications and clinical translation.

Dr. Lei Li is an assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Bioengineering at Rice University. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Electrical Engineering at California Institute of Technology in 2019. He received his MS at Washington University in St. Louis in 2016. His research focuses on developing next-generation medical imaging technology for understanding the brain better, diagnosing early-stage cancer, and wearable monitoring of human vital signs. He received the Charles and Ellen Wilts Prize from Caltech in 2020 and was selected as one of the Innovators Under 35 by MIT Technology Review in 2019. He was selected as a TED fellow in 2021 and a rising star in Engineering in Health by Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University (2021). He is also a two-time winner of the Seno Medical Best Paper Award granted by SPIE (2017 and 2020, San Francisco).