The Focused Ultrasound Foundation participated in CES® 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada, to raise awareness of focused ultrasound technology among an unprecedented worldwide audience of more than 170,000 fellow global innovators, technology-minded consumers, and journalists. Known as the “Global Stage for Innovation,” CES is produced annually by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA).
Foundation Board member and best-selling author John Grisham and Foundation Chairman Neal Kassell, MD, participated in a wide variety of strategic outreach activities including a media event, an interview at Gary’s Book Club, and a "Let's Go Humans" panel of organizations that are using technology to better the world.
Best-selling author and Foundation Board member John Grisham joined Foundation Chairman Neal Kassell, MD, on stage at CES for an interview with CTA CEO Gary Shapiro. The Gary’s Book Club event centered on Grisham’s The Tumor, a short e-book about how focused ultrasound can transform treatment of serious medical disorders.
Building on the Foundation’s presence at CES, Chairman Neal Kassell, MD, shared the stage with LG Electronics USA Vice President John Taylor and Zero Mass Water Founder and CEO Cody Friesen for a panel discussion called “Let’s Go Humans: Celebrating Life-Changing Tech.” The session featured leaders behind “tech for good” companies creating technologies that change lives, and Kassell discussed focused ultrasound’s potential to impact countless patients. It was hosted by NPR’s Dr. Moira Gunn.
The upcoming 6th International Symposium on Focused Ultrasound is set to cover a wide range of topics as the field of focused ultrasound continues to grow. The four-day program, beginning October 21, will include oral and poster presentations, panel discussions, and keynote lectures related to the clinical uses of focused ultrasound as well as future hurdles to widespread adoption.
University of Calgary researchers with the Hotchkiss Brain Institute in the Cumming School of Medicine are combining expertise and resources to bring the first comprehensive focused ultrasound brain program to Western Canada. Physicians and scientists from the departments of Clinical Neurosciences, Radiology, and Psychiatry have all joined together for this project, and clinical treatments for essential tremor have begun. Research teams will also conduct basic and clinical research.
Focused ultrasound has the potential to become a new, and potentially more effective, tool for non-invasive neuromodulation of regional brain function. A Foundation-funded research study by Wonhye Lee, PhD (pictured), Seung-Schik Yoo, PhD, MBA, and their colleagues at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, designed and tested wearable devices for evaluating its use in vivo.
We are sad to report that Dr. Juergen Willmann, a champion for focused ultrasound at Stanford University, passed away January 8 at the age of 45. Through his research, Dr. Willmann strived to integrate novel imaging and therapeutic strategies into clinical protocols for improved patient care.
The Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) held their annual meeting October 11-14 in Phoenix, AZ. Nine focused ultrasound presentations were selected for the agenda, covering topics such as pulsed focused ultrasound to modulate an immune response in breast and melanoma tumor models; focused ultrasound and microbubbles for cancer therapy; a new idea for prostate cancer treatment; and novel tools for studying focused ultrasound for brain neuromodulation.
Did you know you may be able to publish your next paper in the Journal of Therapeutic Ultrasound (JTU) for free or at a reduced rate? The JTU is the premier open access journal focused on the rapidly growing field of therapeutic ultrasound and aims to publish the most cutting-edge research on non-invasive therapeutic technology as an alternative to surgery or radiation.
Do you want to present your research at this year’s International Symposium for Therapeutic Ultrasound (ISTU)? The deadline for abstract submissions for both oral and poster presentations is February 1, 2018, at 5:00 PM ET. ISTU will convene May 14-17 in Nashville, TN.
How are the first essential tremor patients treated with focused ultrasound doing now, two years later? Can the right carrier improve drug delivery to the brain? The January Research Roundup answers these questions and includes a technical paper that describes an acoustic lens that might improve focused ultrasound treatments in the brain.
The Foundation team wishes to thank four focused ultrasound companies who helped make the technology real for CES attendees. Insightec’s 3-D model of their Exablate Neuro system illustrated how focused ultrasound is used in the brain. Additionally, Foundation staff provided live ablation demonstrations (pictured) with Theraclion’s Echopulse clinical system using tissue-mimicking phantoms provided by ONDA. At our other booth, Verasonics’ preclinical device demonstrated focused ultrasound’s effects in water. Thank you to these partners in helping raise awareness of focused ultrasound.
