Listening to Light: Photoacoustic Imaging and its Applications

Photoacoustic imaging is an emerging novel imaging technique combining both optical and ultrasound imaging. A short-pulsed laser illuminate the tissue to generate sound waves called the photoacoustic wave. These sound waves are used to get high contrast, high resolution deep tissue imaging of various parameters. Photoacoustic imaging like ultrasound imaging a multi-scale multi-depth imaging modality. In this presentation, basics of photoacoustic imaging and several imaging systems will be covered. One particular clinical application of photoacoustic imaging is non-invasive sentinel lymph node detection for the breast cancer staging. Several other clinical applications of photoacoustic imaging will be discussed. Recent development of deep learning application in photoacoustic imaging also will be discussed

Dr. Pramanik received his Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Currently, he is an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. He also has an appointment as a Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. His industry experiences include two years at GE Global Research, and one year at Philips in India. He serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Biomedical Optics, Biomedical Optics Express, and as an Editorial Board Member of Photoacoustics.