Archive for category: News

UC Irvine grad student training program aims to broaden access to cardiovascular care

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New NSF-funded initiative emphasizes technological solutions to health disparities

Irvine, Calif., Sept. 23, 2024 — Recent medical and biotechnology advances have helped people suffering from cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, but new treatments have not been distributed evenly or equitably throughout society, according to researchers at the University of California, Irvine.

To help address this, the National Science Foundation has awarded an interdisciplinary team at UC Irvine $3 million to launch a Biomedical Engineering Social Science Training initiative for graduate students to develop a next-generation workforce. The program combines education in cardiovascular health, technology and equity with a strengthened commitment to broadening access to care to traditionally underserved communities.

“To take advantage of new data science-driven approaches and technologies such as wearable devices, we need a reimagined and redesigned cardiovascular healthcare ecosystem,” said principal investigator Naomi Chesler, UC Irvine professor of biomedical engineering. “This NSF BEST grant to UC Irvine will enable focused collaboration among biomedical engineers, public health experts, psychological and behavioral scientists, and community members in training a new cadre of professionals devoted to access and equity in cardiovascular health and healthcare.”

The BEST program will serve 30 to 40 students in UC Irvine’s Department of Biomedical Engineering; Department of Health, Society & Behavior; and Department of Psychological Science, with two years of funding provided to 15 doctoral students. Participants will engage in specialized courses, interdisciplinary workshops and a summer research internship. They will be taught to recognize, develop and use technological solutions to address cardiovascular health and healthcare disparities, according to Chesler.

Central to the initiative will be extensive engagement between students and community and industry partners to prepare them for careers in academia, government and commercial enterprises.

“Training will include an immersive research internship in a community care center where participants will experience firsthand the impact of healthcare inequities on California’s underserved populations,” Chesler said.

The NSF BEST program will introduce students to the concept of team science and provide skills training at multiple stages of each participant’s journey. Chesler said that outcomes will be rigorously studied and evaluated to perfect training in the knowledge, skills and values to collaboratively solve health inequities with technology.

Joining Chesler as co-principal investigators are Bernard Choi, professor of biomedical engineering; Jason Douglas, associate professor of health, society and behavior; Christine King, associate professor of teaching in biomedical engineering; and Dylan Roby, chair and professor of health, society and behavior.

Core participants include Jessica Borelli, professor of psychological science; Michelle Digman, associate professor and William J. Link Chair of Biomedical Engineering; Amir Rahmani, professor of nursing and computer science; and Maritza Salazar Campo, assistant professor of teaching in organization and management in The Paul Merage School of Business. The lead evaluator of the NSF BEST program is Margaret Schneider, evaluation director in UC Irvine’s Institute for Clinical and Translational Science.

UC Irvine’s Brilliant Future campaign: Publicly launched on Oct. 4, 2019, the Brilliant Future campaign aims to raise awareness and support for the university. By engaging 75,000 alumni and garnering $2 billion in philanthropic investment, UC Irvine seeks to reach new heights of excellence in student success, health and wellness, research and more. The Henry Samueli School of Engineering plays a vital role in the success of the campaign. Learn more by visiting https://brilliantfuture.uci.edu/the-henry-samueli-school-of-engineering.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UC Irvine has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UC Irvine, visit www.uci.edu.

Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus studio with a Comrex IP audio codec to interview UC Irvine faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UC Irvine news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at https://news.uci.edu/media-resources.

Click here to read full press release.

UC Irvine Anti-Cancer Challenge Funds Institute Investigators

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Anti-Cancer Challenge Funded Research

The Anti-Cancer Challenge advances the UC Irvine Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center’s research mission by funding pilot projects that help investigators generate crucial preliminary data for high impact research.

Since our first Anti-Cancer Challenge Pilot Project in 2017, we have witnessed the impact of innovative research in the effort to reduce the cancer burden in our community. The following videos are from our first cohort in 2016 of the Principal Investigators reflecting on the progress of their research.

Thanks to the generosity of Anti-Cancer Challenge participants and donors, the following UC Irvine Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic investigators were awarded funds in support of their biotechnology, imaging and drug development cancer research projects:

2023 Anti-Cancer Challenge Awardees
Project Title: Enhancing the efficacy of radiation therapy by surgically targeted radiation-sensitizer loaded hydrogels: translation of in vitro results to a post-resection rat brain tumor model
Investigator: Hirschberg, Henry

2022 Anti-Cancer Challenge Awardees
Project Title: “Image-guided Precision Radiotherapy” Team Science Seed Grant
Xiang, Liangzhong

2020 Anti-Cancer Challenge Awardees
Project Title: Real-time dosimetric measurement for FLASH radiotherapy with acoustic emission
Investigator: Xiang, Liangzhong

2019 Anti-Cancer Challenge Awardees
Project Title: Pilot study for evaluating the multiphoton microscopy potential for non-invasive, early diagnosis of melanoma
Investigator: Kelly, Kristen

2018 Anti-Cancer Challenge Awardees
Project Title: Advancing oro-pharyngeal cancer screening and diagnosis to overcome disparities and improve control and outcomes
Investigator: Wilder-Smith, Petra

2017 Anti-Cancer Challenge Awardees
Project Title: RhoJ inhibitors – a novel treatment for early stage melanoma
Investigator: Ganesan, Anand

Click here for a list of all Anti-Cancer Challenge Awardees.

Click here to join the Institute Anti-Cancer Challenge BLI Photons in Motion team.

Getting help for thyroid eye disease

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Thyroid eye disease is an autoimmune disorder that can wreak havoc on a patient’s vision and appearance, causing dryness, redness, double vision, difficulty closing eyelids and in some cases, a noticeable bulging of the eyes.

“Moderate to severe thyroid eye disease can also be socially stigmatizing, affecting patients beyond their clinical symptoms,” says Dr. Lilangi S. Ediriwickrema, a UCI Health ophthalmologist at the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute and an assistant professor in the UC Irvine School of Medicine’s Department of Ophthalmology.

Ediriwickrema, who specializes in oculofacial plastic surgery and neuro-ophthalmology, is part of an interdisciplinary team formed to treat patients with thyroid eye disease.

First to diagnose

While the disease most often affects individuals who are already experiencing an overactive thyroid, it sometimes appears in individuals with low or even normal thyroid levels — especially if they smoke. It’s not unusual for an ophthalmologist to be the first to diagnose a thyroid imbalance when a patient seeks care for dryness, vision problems and eyelid swelling.

At the eye institute, patients diagnosed with thyroid eye disease may be referred to the oculofacial plastic and orbital surgery team led by Dr. Jeremiah P. Tao. He and Ediriwickrema work closely with various specialists to determine the best treatment options, with the ultimate goal of preserving vision.

For some patients with thyroid eye disease, prescription medicine may offer relief and allow the condition to resolve itself. In certain cases, however, surgery is the most effective and efficient treatment.

“It’s important for patients to be seen by specialists who have all the tools in their toolbox to not only monitor their condition but also treat the disease,” explains Tao, a professor of ophthalmology at the medical school.

Surgical interventions

Patients with moderate to severe thyroid eye disease may undergo what is known as decompression surgery.

In this procedure, the goal is to create more space around the eye to accommodate the swelling that leads to bulging of the eye and, in some cases, vision loss. Typically, this involves removing some bone around the eye.

“Inflammation in the eye socket can cause an assortment of problems,” explains Tao. “Decompression surgery sometimes offers immediate relief and takes pressure off the optic nerve, thereby reducing the risk of permanent vision loss.”

Patients whose thyroid eye disease causes double vision may require strabismus surgery to adjust eye muscles to allow the eyes to move together again.

People with complications such as severe dry eye may need a cornea specialist to help manage their care.

Oculoplastic surgery by Tao or Ediriwickrema may be recommended for patients with eyelid retraction problems or to remove extra tissue and fat accumulation around the eye as a result of the disease.

Evolving therapies

Both eye surgeons are optimistic that new therapeutic options will emerge to provide customized, multidisciplinary care for thyroid eye disease.

With funding from the National Institutes of Health, Ediriwickrema is studying how the inflammatory condition affects blood vessels and other tissue around the eye.

“The treatment landscape is continually evolving,” she says. “We hope that in the next 10 to 20 years we can offer patients even more options to manage this disease.”

Related stories

Read more at UCI Health Live Well.

Optical coherence tomography has potential to treat port-wine birthmarks

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Collaboration needed to advance technology for use in patient care

A new study led by UC Irvine researchers found that while optical coherence tomography (OCT) could potentially guide port-wine birthmark treatment, the technology has a long way to go before it can be used in patient care.

Port-wine birthmarks are reddish-purple skin discolorations caused by a concentration of blood vessels. Using OCT, researchers measured the variability in blood vessel characteristics within 15 individual birthmarks on 10 patients, ranging from ages 8 to 72.

UCI Health dermatologist Dr. Kristen M. Kelly, corresponding author of the study, spoke to Healio about the findings.

“There is very wide variability in the number of vessels and in the size of vessels in port-wine birthmarks. I have to say, the degree of variability surprised me. We saw some port-wine birthmarks with vessels that were the size of what we would see in uninvolved skin and then there were ones where it was very dilated.”

The variability in vessel size means that numerous measurements would be required for treatment, making OCT a time-consuming option at the moment. Kelly says the best solution would be a tool that could rapidly and automatically measure vessels and select the appropriate laser settings.

“My hope really is that ultimately, we’ll use [OCT] to be able to guide treatments. But it will be tricky. It requires engineers and clinicians, patients and scientists all working together to be able to optimize this in a way that will be most helpful to patients.”

Kelly is a dermatologist who sees patients at UCI Health Dermatology Services and the Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic. She is also a professor and chair of the Department of Dermatology in the UC Irvine School of Medicine.

Repeatedly named a Physician of Excellence by the Orange County Medical Association, she has decades of experience using lasers to treat vascular birthmarks, scars and other dermatologic conditions. Kelly specializes in cutaneous vascular lesions, skin cancer and other skin conditions, including acne and sun damage, and is a leader in the use of imaging technologies to accurately diagnose skin cancer. She is the author or co-author of more than 100 publications and book chapters.

Read more

Click here to read more on UCI Health News.

UCI Researchers Awarded NSF Grant to Develop Critical Education Model to Address Cardiovascular Health Technology and Equity

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Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death nationwide. Unequal care and access to care for patients with cardiovascular disease is a critical national problem. Innovative engineering approaches, wearable devices and technology-enabled data mining have unrealized promise in both advancing care and improving access and equity. To take advantage of these approaches and technologies, workforce training must be reconsidered and redesigned.

Drs. Naomi Chesler, Dylan Roby, Jason Douglas, Bernard Choi and Christine King recently received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Traineeship (NRT) Integrated Biomedical Engineering Social Science Training (BEST) award in support from the Edwards Lifesciences Foundation to create a new graduate education model.  The model will unite biomedical engineers, behavioral scientists and psychological scientists to develop a next generation workforce that will be able to solve problems at the intersection of cardiovascular health, technology and equity.

Through interdisciplinary workshops, courses and a summer research internship, trainees will learn to recognize, develop and use technological solutions to increase access to and equity in cardiovascular health and healthcare. The program will serve 30 to 40 students from the departments of biomedical engineering, health, society and behavior and psychological sciences with two years of funding provided to 15 doctoral students. The convergent training in biomedical engineering and social sciences and engagement with community and industry partners will prepare the trainees for careers, in which they transform practices in industry, government and academia.

Participants will receive interdisciplinary training in social determinants of health, engineering design, and best practices in collaboration and scientific mentoring. Moreover, training will include a unique immersive research internship in a community care center to ensure that those most affected by lack of access and inequities are engaged in finding solutions.

The research theme of using technology to advance cardiovascular health, healthcare and healthcare access and equity will serve as the basis for meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration. The workforce trained through this NRT program will be able to use new and existing technologies to understand the root causes of cardiovascular health disparities, develop tools and systems that improve cardiovascular health and healthcare and study the individual, local and national barriers to acceptance of novel technologies for improved cardiovascular health and healthcare.

The program will introduce participants to team science and will provide skill training at multiple stages of each trainee’s participation in the program to support continued development of team-based approaches to problem solving. The project outcomes will be a demonstrated, well-evaluated model for transformative graduate training that is effective in developing trainees with the knowledge, skills and values to collaboratively solve health inequities with technology. Finally, a science-of-collaboration study conducted throughout the NRT project will explore the dynamics and efficacy of strategies designed to promote interdisciplinary collaboration by faculty and trainees in the program.

Could Cognitive Tests Save America From Gerontocracy? | The Daily Show

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America’s democracy may not be the strongest, but it is the oldest! Grace Kuhlenschmidt explores the drawbacks of having a gerontocracy by chatting with UC Irvine neuropolitics researcher Mark Fisher, who explains how the brain deteriorates and what’s really covered on a cognitive test. Plus, she visits Congressman Maxwell Frost for a younger politician’s perspective.

Click here to view on the The Daily Show YouTube channel.

Joseph A. Izatt (1962–2024)

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Marinko V. Sarunic & Cynthia A. Toth

Nature Photonics volume 18, pages767–768 (2024)

Joseph Izatt’s work advanced the science of imaging in biophotonics and brought optical coherence tomography imaging to the eye care of infants and children and, as live feedback for the surgeon, to ophthalmic microsurgery.

Joseph Izatt, who passed away on 7 April 2024, was the Michael J. Fitzpatrick Professor of Engineering, Chair of Duke’s Department of Biomedical Engineering in the Pratt School of Engineering, and Professor of Ophthalmology in the School of Medicine, Duke University.

Izatt inherited his love of science from his father, Jerald Izatt. He started working with lasers in high school, winning first place in the Quebec Science Expo. He pursued his undergraduate studies in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to follow in his father’s scientific footsteps, finding great intellectual fulfilment in his research at the George R. Harrison Spectroscopy Laboratory and in his work with Claude Shannon on his juggling machine. Izatt relished the opportunity to tinker and build, leading his undergraduate advisor Mildred Dresselhauss to suggest that he should pursue his advanced training in an engineering field. As a result, Izatt focused on applied optics for his graduate studies at MIT, first under the mentorship of Michael Feld and then under James Fujimoto for his postdoctoral work.

Izatt joined the Biomedical Engineering Faculty at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio upon the completion of his postdoctoral fellowship in 1994. He then moved to Duke University in 2001, where he was the inaugural Director of the Laboratory for Biophotonics in the Fitzpatrick Institute of Photonics, in the Pratt School of Engineering, and became Chair of Biomedical Engineering in 2022. His research was based in biomedical optics and optical spectroscopy for non-invasive and minimally invasive imaging of living cells and tissues, with real-world clinical impacts, particularly in ophthalmology. Izatt was credited with the first published images of the ocular anterior chamber with optical coherent tomography (OCT) in 1994 (ref. 1). Some of the most important contributions in his pioneering work on OCT included optimization of interferometer designs and detection2,3 and propelling the translational potential of OCT from the optics bench towards clinical applications. His contributions expanded beyond biophotonics and encompassed all aspects of biomedical optical engineering, including signal processing and high-speed system integration for real-time visualization, topics that are emphasized throughout his long list of (over 200) academic publications and (over 75) patents.

Throughout his career, Izatt demonstrated innovative approaches to increase the information obtained through optical imaging, most notably in his contributions toward motion contrast for angiography, spectroscopic approaches for molecular contrast, and high-resolution imaging. Through the novel combination of these topics, his work culminated in high-impact and non-invasive imaging and sensing in living biological tissues, such as ultra-compact hand-held pediatric imaging4 and super-resolution retinal imaging5. Izatt had a brilliant mind and a unique ability to see into the future, connecting seemingly distant scientific disciplines. His thought leadership on the combination of artificial intelligence and robotics with biophotonics led to exciting and potentially transformative advances in automation for image acquisition, for example making sophisticated ophthalmic instrumentation available even in non-specialist centres6.

Izatt was a visionary, transformative researcher. Early in his career, he conceptualized improving ophthalmic care by creating and implementing new imaging technologies at the point-of-care. He succeeded in bringing ophthalmic OCT to both bedside and surgical use, inspiring and mentoring many engineers and clinician-scientists along the way. In 2001, as early tabletop OCT systems were moving into clinical care, Izatt’s group demonstrated Fourier domain OCT of the eye at up to 16 frames per second, creating the first human ophthalmic handheld OCT probe7. By 2012, his handheld portable Spectral Domain OCT system, developed by Bioptigen, Inc. — a company he cofounded — had been FDA-cleared for use in neonates, infants, children and adults for anterior segment (front of the eye) and posterior segment (back of the eye) ocular imaging. This device opened the door for diagnostic OCT imaging in preterm infants and children who were at risk of developing vision-threatening eye diseases but for whom this breakthrough technology had not been accessible8.

In parallel, Izatt’s breakthrough technology also brought OCT to the operating room9. At first, this was done through use of the handheld system prior to, or at pauses during, eye surgery to reveal depth-resolved details of ocular microanatomy. Izatt’s research group at Duke University integrated the OCT optics with the surgical microscope and this too was commercialized through Bioptigen and later sold to Leica, Inc. This transformative technology paved the way for OCT imaging to directly inform observations within the microscope and enabled guidance during surgery, using what was referred to as “4D (three-dimensional imaging over time) microscope-integrated OCT”10. Izatt’s translational developments have had profound and lasting impacts in the fields of pediatric OCT imaging and microsurgical OCT. He had a special gift, and commitment, to reaching out and working with students and clinicians to create transformative technology.

Izatt was passionate in his support of an accessible scientific community, and as a community leader he brought together researchers at interdisciplinary forums. Izatt was co-chair of the Optical Coherence Tomography and Coherence Domain Optical Methods conference within SPIE Photonics West for over two decades before stepping down earlier this year. He was also the first editor-in-chief of Biomedical Optics Express, which was spun out of Optics Express in 2010 within the Optica (formerly Optical Society of America) family of journals. Under his leadership, the journal quickly grew in size and impact and is now widely recognized as one of the most important journals in the field of OCT research. For his volunteering and contributions to academic meetings and publications Izatt was awarded the Stephen D. Fantone Distinguished Service Award by Optica in 2022.

In recognition of his scientific contributions, he was named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He received Optica’s Edwin H. Land Medal in 2021 “for foundational contributions to the invention, development, and commercialization of optical coherence-based technologies for in vivo biomedical imaging, and for the education and mentoring of distinguished scientists and engineers”.

Izatt was described as an amazing mentor by his past and present students. He was an outstanding role model who mirrored enthusiasm for new ideas, answered all questions with respect, and was always honest. In recognition of his mentoring, he was awarded both the 2008 Pratt School of Engineering’s Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising and the 2017 Graduate School Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring. He inspired his students, and they inspired him back. In an interview with Optica, he explained, “I know if I’m out of town for a couple of days, when I come back, I’ve got a group of brilliant students who can’t wait to tell me what they’ve been doing and what they’ve done and the results that they have. And that is so exciting for me. It just never gets old. That’s my favorite part about what I do”11.

Most importantly, Izatt’s dedication to his family and the joy of life outside of work during his busy career allowed his students to appreciate the importance of family in all of their lives. He cultivated a spirit of friendship and comradery in his group, building a tight-knit “lab family” among his students and peers. The laboratory year would not have been complete without the weekly lunches and lively discussions at journal club, the summer research retreat to the beach house, the lab adventure during Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meetings, and JoeFest during SPIE Photonics West.

Izatt met his wife, Susan, when they were undergraduates at MIT. They were blessed with three children: Elizabeth, Gregory, and Daniel. He took great joy in sharing his passions and time with his family. He helped his children build a 10-foot trebuchet in the driveway, supported a myriad of Elizabeth’s and Gregory’s Science Olympiad building projects, tutored trigonometry and calculus on a traditional chalkboard hung on the kitchen wall, and mentored his children in his lab. He journeyed across the state supporting Daniel’s travel teams and was always a familiar face running the concession stand at high-school home games. Izatt had a particular love for flying and aviation. He never missed a chance to take the family to the National Air and Space Museum. Every Christmas had to involve at least one remote control toy aircraft; and the newest versions of Flight Simulator were installed on the home computer the day they were released. He fulfilled a personal dream when he obtained his pilot’s license, taking great joy in flying his family above Raleigh and the islands of the Outer Banks.

Izatt will be missed by his family, friends and colleagues. His enthusiasm and positive energy infected those around him in research, entrepreneurship, and in conferences. We who worked with him were grateful for his generous spirit, which made each of us a better scientist and partner.

Read full obituary from Nature Photonics.

An anticancer camera?

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Dr. Petra Wilder-Smith’s screening device takes aim at oral lesions

By: Faith Neo, UC Irvine
Photo: Steve Zylius / UC Irvine

At the forefront of a movement to rewrite oral and oropharyngeal cancer outcomes, Dr. Petra Wilder-Smith has spent the last two decades working on devices for early detection.

Now, in collaboration with Rongguang Liang at the University of Arizona’s Wyant College of Optical Sciences, the director of dentistry at UC Irvine’s Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic and a professor of surgery has developed a commercial intraoral camera with the ability to screen for cancer.

The current method for oral cancer detection involves a professional looking into the mouth and feeling for lumps. Oral cancer lesions are largely heterogeneous, so they present in many different, easy-to-miss forms. Since treatment is planned around an oral biopsy, it’s best to be able to identify and take a sample from the most dangerous part of the lesion.

“There’s everything from little dots with severe cancer to little dots that are healthy and to little areas that are in between,” Wilder-Smith says. “Just by looking at it, I don’t know where to biopsy, because I can’t tell where the most severe disease is.”

Testing has shown that her and Liang’s intraoral camera will boost the accuracy of oral cancer detection from 40 to 60 percent to 87 to 93 percent. This will change dentistry for end-users, says hygienist Cherie Wink, a researcher at the Beckman Laser Institute and an instructor in San Joaquin Valley College’s dental hygiene program.

“As a clinician,” she says, “this device will eliminate the guesswork in interpreting clinical findings, leading to earlier diagnoses and improved patient outcomes.”

The project, which started in 2008, received funding from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health. A patent was recently secured with help from UCI Beall Applied Innovation, which oversees all the campus’s patents and licensing efforts. Alvin Viray, its associate director of licensing, is proud to be part of the project.

“Dr. Wilder-Smith has been nothing short of exceptional,” he says. “Her development of an imaging device for oral cancer detection is both innovative and commercially valuable, while promising to make a profound impact on public health.”

UC Irvine and the University of Arizona own the camera’s patent. While the device has not been licensed yet, Wilder-Smith will soon be seeking a second stage of investors, and Viray is in licensing discussions.

The camera has already seen 10 prototypes. One was smartphone-based and took the form of a phone case that, when connected to an intraoral camera, could image oral lesions. There is currently a final prototype being used for testing and algorithm fine-tuning. The next step is to evaluate it for manufacturing.

In her career at the Beckman Laser Institute, Wilder-Smith has also worked on other devices. She was part of a team that redesigned tools generating aerosol emissions so they would stop spreading aerosol-transmissible illnesses, such as colds and the flu.

Wilder-Smith has also been involved in studies linking topical oral treatments to changes in the microbiome and the gastrointestinal tract, which can have far-reaching consequences for whole-body health. But her main focus now remains on the intraoral camera.

“Quite simply, my goal is to improve oral cancer outcomes,” she says, “because it’s the only major cancer whose outcomes are still getting worse.”

Click here to read full article on UC Irvine News.

Professor Christopher Barty is pushing cancer treatment into the future

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The UCI physicist is developing a machine that can find and treat cancer anywhere in the human body.

Imagine a machine that can selectively image cancer in the body and also eliminate that cancer while minimizing damage to any surrounding tissue. It may sound fictional, but Lumitron Technologies, a company housed in the UCI Research Park and co-founded by Professor Christopher Barty of the UC Irvine Department of Physics & Astronomy, is developing a novel X-ray and electron beam machine called HyperVIEW™ that may soon do just that. “The machine has now generated electron beams that can be used to treat cancer anywhere in the human body and X-ray beams that follow the same path as the electrons that can image cancer at 100 times beyond the resolution of conventional clinical systems,” said Barty. “The holy grail is that ultimately you will have the ability to guide your cancer treatment in ways that nobody’s ever been able to do before.” HyperVIEW™ is a fourth-generation, laser-Compton X-ray technology Barty started developing when he was a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  HyperVIEW™ X-rays will  “allow you to image soft tissues at potentially cellular levels, something that has only ever been done at billion-dollar synchrotron facilities” Barty said, which means Lumitron’s technology could one day both track and treat cancer at the cellular level in the human body. The company plans to have FDA approval for initial, precision cancer imaging applications by late 2025 and will move HyperVIEW™ to pre-clinical cancer treatment studies late this summer. “With this technology, we may eliminate the need to ever remove a breast or prostate again,” said Barty.

Click here to read the full article on the UC Irvine School of Physical Sciences website.

Four Assistant Professors Win NSF CAREER Awards

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– Lori Brandt, UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering

June 28, 2024 – Four UC Irvine engineering assistant professors – Salma Elmalaki, Perry Johnson, Christopher Olivares Martinez and Maxim Shcherbakov — have been recognized this year with Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards from the National Science Foundation. Among NSF’s most prestigious honors, the CAREER award supports young faculty who are academic role models in research and education.

Elmalaki, electrical engineering and computer science, will receive $575,000 over five years from the Division of Computer and Network Systems. Her research aims to design innovative decision-making algorithms for cyberphysical (CPS) systems that consider both the physical aspects of the systems and the complex social-psychological nature of human interactions with these systems.

The rise of smart technologies has enabled a new era of human-technology interaction, which presents tremendous opportunities for a more equitable and privacy-aware societal scale of CPS but also poses formidable challenges. Elmalaki believes that comprehending the intricate relationships between CPS and humans is essential for shaping equitable societal outcomes in future technologies. With this project, she seeks to bridge gaps in current CPS engineering practices by incorporating social-psychological dynamics and societal considerations into innovative solutions. By developing new algorithms, models and tools that seamlessly integrate these dynamics, her research aims to provide a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners in the field. “Such psychologically aware decision-making algorithms will enable harmonious interactions, foster equity and optimize overall performance,” said Elmalaki.

Johnson, mechanical and aerospace engineering, is the recipient of $500,000 over five years from the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems.

Johnson’s project aims to reshape our understanding of turbulent boundary layers and how to predict their dynamics. Turbulence plays a key physical role in a wide variety of boundary layer flows related to energy, transportation and national security. As such, improving simulation capabilities for boundary layer turbulence holds the key to accelerating engineering design, optimization and certification while reducing associated costs.

These boundary layers are thin layers of fluid — air or water — adjacent to the immersed body such as an airplane, ship, submarine or wind turbine blade. The performance and efficiency of these vehicles and devices depend crucially on the fluid dynamics in these thin layers. Johnson’s research focuses on two critical areas: the interaction of boundary layers with pressure gradients, which are caused by aerodynamic shaping, crucial for understanding phenomena like turbulent boundary layer separation and its impact on aerodynamic drag; and high-speed effects relevant to hypersonic vehicles. The goal is to develop a new method that is a more cost-effective solution, making it invaluable for design optimization and certification processes in advanced airplane concepts.

Olivares Martinez, civil and environmental engineering, is investigating the impact of wildland-urban interface fires on water quality. He was awarded $559,788 from the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems.

“It was just six years ago, when the world learned about the first reports on volatile cancer-causing chemicals in tap water following fires,” said Olivares Martinez. “Our research aims to understand how these chemicals impact the microbial safety of tap water, something we don’t know anything about.”

As fires become more frequent and severe due to climate change, it is important for researchers and policymakers to understand and mitigate the adverse impacts on drinking water quality and distribution systems. When fires occur at the wildland-urban interface, where humans and their built environment meet and interact with wildland vegetation, the plastic components of drinking water pipes and distribution networks can undergo combustion and chemical breakdown releasing toxic substances including benzene, toluene, styrene and vinyl chloride. These chemicals can contaminate drinking water and promote the growth of microorganisms and harmful pathogens for several months following fires.

Olivares Martinez’s project will look at the release and continued presence of high concentrations of chemicals in water distribution systems following wildfires and if they consume any residual disinfectant in the systems. He will also see if the remaining toxins will metabolize and support the growth of harmful microorganisms in tap water. With his findings, Olivares Martinez hopes to contribute to developing climate adaptation treatments to protect water quality and public health after fires and other climate change disasters.

Shcherbakov, electrical engineering and computer science, was awarded $550,000 from the Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems for his project to improve photonic devices.

Photonics is a powerful technology that enables ever-growing data transfer and inspires novel energy-efficient and reconfigurable architectures that will empower the computers of the future. However, the present diversity of colors in photonic chips calls for a universal approach to transfer signals from one light frequency to another. Currently, chips carry near-infrared signals for communication, visible signals for imaging and mid-infrared for thermal radiation and sensing applications. Conversion between these chips through electronics-driven detection and emission is slow and inefficient.

Shcherbakov’s research will address the problem of efficient frequency conversion on a chip. His project aims to bridge the gap between mid-, near-infrared and visible photonics at the nanoscale by exploring nanostructures called photonic-photonic metasurfaces. He will connect signals across five octaves of light through nonlinear and quantum light-matter interactions. His project proposes to use modern tools of nanotechnology, as well as rigorous numerical design approaches and state-of-the-art optical testing tools, including femtosecond lasers and single-photon correlation techniques. He says, “the results will pave the way to better, more efficient signaling on a chip, enabling advancements in on-chip photonics, impacting computing, signal processing, telecommunication, quantum information and medical imaging technologies.”

Click here to read full article on the UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering website.