Listening to the Sound of Light with A Robot: Fusion of Imaging and Robotics for Healthcare
Abstract
Medical robotics has been widely applied in areas such as surgical assistance, enabling higher precision, reduced fatigue, and enhanced performance, and tele-operation, allowing surgeons to perform procedures remotely without being physically present with the patient. A key enabler of medical robotics is imaging, which has rapidly evolved over the past two decades to support more minimally invasive, personalized, and low-risk diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. My research group focuses on the intersection of medical robotics, sensing, and imaging, with the aim of developing robotic-assisted imaging systems and image-guided robotic interventional platforms. We emphasize ultrasound and photoacoustic (PA) imaging due to their real-time capabilities, accessibility, and compact form, which make them ideal for integration into interventional procedures. In this talk, I will highlight two major research thrusts in our lab. First, I will present our work on PA-based functional image-guided interventions, which provide functional information such as disease states and therapy progression. This approach enables high-sensitivity, multimodal robotic-assisted surgical guidance. Specifically, we are investigating the use of molecular-targeted contrast agents to delineate prostate cancer using spectroscopic PA (sPA) imaging, and a label-free sPA method to monitor therapeutic progression during cardiac ablation. Second, I will discuss autonomous robotic imaging, which aims to reduce user dependency during image acquisition, resulting in higher-quality images and more comprehensive scanning. This includes our development of a robotic optical coherence tomography (OCT) platform for quantifying microstructural parameters of human kidneys during transplant surgeries to assess organ viability,and an autonomous ultrasound robot for diagnosing lung diseases. These advancements in robotic imaging and intervention have the potential to significantly enhance both diagnostic capabilities and therapeutic outcomes, paving the way for the next generation of medical imaging and robotics.
Biography
Dr. Haichong (Kai) Zhang is an Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Robotics Engineering with an appointment in Computer Science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). He is the founding director of the Medical Frontier Ultrasound Imaging and Robotic Instrumentation (Medical FUSION) Laboratory. His research interests include advanced medical imaging and robotic instrumentation with an emphasis on ultrasound and photoacoustics. Dr. Zhang received his B.S. and M.S. in Human Health Sciences from the Kyoto University, Japan, and subsequently earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Zhang is the recipient of the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award (DP5) in 2019 and the Early Investigator Research Award from the Department of Defense Prostate Cancer Research Program in 2018. He has served as a Program Committee Member for two tracks at the Image-Guided Procedures, Robotic Interventions, and Modeling and Ultrasonic Imaging and Tomography at the SPIE Medical Imaging Conference.
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