Office of Undergraduate Research

Dual-channel Thermoacoustic Tomography of Healthy and Diseased Tissue Specimens

The overarching goal in this lab is to quantify the thermoacoustic contrast mechanism. Because prostate cancer is notoriously difficult to image with current diagnostic imaging techniques (xray, MRI, ultrasound, CT) we are is focusing on prostate cancer imaging. This lab is collaborating with individuals at MCW and they have recently received IRB approval to perform ex vivo thermoacoustic imaging of surgical prostate specimens. Scanning these specimens in our lab's 3rd-generation TCT testbed and fully characterizing that testbed's performance will be the main focus of research in this research during the 2011-2012 academic year.

Tasks and responsibilities:

All students in this lab will perform the following tasks: 1. courier tissue specimens from MCW, Kewaskum Frozen Foods. They will complete bloodborne pathogen and IATA training before transporting human tissue. 2. fix and deliver specimens to MCW and Norris for pickup by Marshfield clinic Courier 3. testbed setup and breakdown, including sign-in and sign-out procedures to validate system performance 4. collect thermoacoustic data. Initially healthy lamb kidneys, later diseased human prostates. 5. filter single-slice sinograms of human tissue real-time to immediately identify any problems 6. master mathematics of spherical wave propagation.