Thanks American Association of Physicists in Medicine’s Science Council Chair Dr. Jan Seuntjens for highlighting our work on protoacoustic imaging for precision proton therapy on the great American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO 2024) as the Cancer Breakthrough this year! It is a great collaborative effort with Dr. Yong Chen’s group and Dr. Lei Ren ‘s group. Thanks for the hard work from all my students and fellows, I am so proud of you all!!

Dr. Shawn Xiang delivered a webinar for the National Cancer Institute (NCI) on October 7, 2024, titled “Theranostics with Radiation-induced Ultrasound Emission (TRUE).” In this presentation, Dr. Xiang discussed three groundbreaking projects related to radiacoustic imaging:

1. In vivo dosimetry and image-guided precision radiotherapy
2. Precision Nano-Knife
3. XACT: A portable and ultrafast CT

For more details, please visit the NCI website: NCI Imaging Webinar.

Dr. Shawn Xiang was interviewed by Dr. Rongxiao Zhang and Richard Dargon from AAPM, where he shared his insights on image-guided FLASH radiotherapy. During the interview, Dr. Xiang introduced the concept of radiation-induced acoustic imaging, a groundbreaking technology developed by the TRUE lab, which plays a crucial role in guiding FLASH RT with greater precision. He was joined by Dr. Brian Pogue, the department chair of Medical Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who discussed his work on Cerenkov imaging and other innovative technologies that are advancing the clinical application of FLASH RT. For more details, you can read the full interview here: AAPM Interview.

Lauren Tidyman just finished her 1st undergraduate study at UCI, and she is working with PhD student Yifei Xu on electroacoustic tomography research. Congrats Lauren for winning the UCI UROP summer research award!

Thanks AAPM 2024 for giving us the Science Council innovation physics award !
The credit goes to my former PhD student Siqi Wang and Gilberto Gonzalez with Dr. Yong Chen at OUHSC! This work on protoacoustic imaging for localizing the Bragg peak has made the impact in the medical physics community. Siqi is now a postdoc scholar at Stanford University. Congrats Siqi for your wonderful work at TRUE lab!

At this year’s AAPM annual meeting in Los Angeles, our PhD student Kristina Bjegovic won the prestigious Best in Physics Award for her work on “Protoacoustic Monitoring of GRID FLASH Proton Therapy.” This is a highly competitive award with only a few recipients. Thanks to the collaborative efforts with the clinical team at OUHSC and Dr. Yong Chen’s team!

TRUE Lab Postdoctoral Researcher Dr. Prabodh Pandey Advances Photoacoustic Microscopy with Innovative Approach. He introduces the concept of employing a low-energy proton beam to generate ultrasound signals for microscopic imaging. This approach, utilizing a finely focused proton beam, promises nanometer-level resolution combined with ultrasound’s ability to enhance penetration depth, enabling super high-resolution imaging of living cells.

Three undergraduate research assistants from the TRUE lab, Shreyas Srinivasan, Yuxuan Bai, and Sanjana Khedikar, have been awarded UROP fellowships for their projects. Congratulations!

Yifei’s Study on Electroacoustic Tomography for Real-Time Monitoring of Electroporation Recognized on Nature.com: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44172-023-00151-7. This is a selection of short Research Highlights describing some of the favourite Communications Engineering publications of 2023 by the Editorial Board and Editorial Team. Congrats!

Kaitlyn Kim was featured in an interview by AuntMinnie.com at RSNA 23. Kaitlyn is a current PhD student in TRUE lab. In the interview, Kaitlyn spoke on behalf of her research work on remote ultrasound detection. Watch the interview here: https://www.auntminnie.com/print/content/15659202