Key Points
- Hyderabad, India, was the site of the fourth meeting of the Society for Image-Guided Neurointerventions.
- The Foundation sponsored a special session that included three focused ultrasound presentations from University of Maryland faculty.
The 4th Society for Image-Guided Neurointerventions (SIGN) conference took place January 5–7, 2024, in Hyderabad, India. This three-day event gathered a diverse group of physicians, scientists, engineers, pharmacologists, and industry representatives from around the world. Conference attendees discussed the latest advances in image-guided neurointerventions, focusing on unique aspects of drug delivery to the brain.
SIGN 2024 was held in collaboration with KIMS Hospitals, one of Hyderabad’s leading 1800-bed multi-super specialty hospitals. The location of the meeting was selected based on the solid advocacy efforts of Rao Gullapalli, PhD, MBA, one of the founders of the Focused Ultrasound Center of Excellence at the University of Maryland. Dr. Gullapalli unfortunately succumbed during meeting preparation; therefore, Gullapalli Awards for Young Investigators were founded to honor his memory.
Conference co-organizer Miroslaw Janowski, MD, PhD, a Professor of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine and co-director of the Program in Image-Guided Neurointerventions (PIGN) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, reported, “Our conference in India was truly a memorable event with enormous support and very personal engagement from local organizers…It was critical to deliver on our mission of a global reach.”
The Focused Ultrasound Foundation sponsored a special session on focused ultrasound that included three presentations from University of Maryland faculty:
- Dheeraj Gandhi, MD, professor of diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine and director of interventional neuroradiology, delivered a keynote lecture, “MR-Guided Focused Ultrasound: Next Frontier in Image-Guided (Non-Surgical) Neurosurgery.”
- Linda Chang, MD, MS, professor and vice chair of faculty development in the Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, presented “Focused Ultrasound to Enhance Drug Delivery in Humanized NOG-IL34 Mice for Eradication of HIV.”
- David Gulisashvili, MD, a postdoctoral research fellow at PIGN (and currently a radiology resident at the University of Maryland School of Medicine), presented “Image-Guided CD47 Blockade in Conjunction with Focused Ultrasound–Based Blood-Brain Barrier Opening to Treat Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma in a Mouse Model.”
There were two additional focused ultrasound presentations:
- In the Biomaterials session, Jung Soo Suk, PhD, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the University of Maryland, presented “Focused Ultrasound– and Polymeric Nanoparticle–Mediated Nucleic Acid Delivery to the Brain.”
- In the Neuromodulation session, Jaroslaw Maciaczyk, MD, PhD, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Bonn, Germany, presented “Future of Neuromodulation in Chronic Pain Treatment,” which mentioned focused ultrasound, as the University of Bonn is equipped with one of two Insightec systems in Germany.
Other topics included challenges related to the targeting of therapeutic agents to the brain using contemporary delivery methods, imaging frontiers for therapeutic agent delivery, the design of therapeutic agents to target the brain, and opportunities for biotech and pharma in drug development and repurposing in the context of new drug delivery methods and advanced imaging possibilities.
SIGN 2025, the fifth annual meeting of the society, will be held January 9–11, 2025, in Basel, Switzerland.
Media Coverage: The Pharma Times and HYBIZ TV