What we do
We study how ultrasound interacts with soft materials — synthetic and biological — at the microscale, and use that understanding to design non-invasive therapies and drug delivery systems.
Our approach brings together wave physics, soft mechanics, mechanobiology, and fluid dynamics. We combine analytical methods, computational modeling, and in vitro and in vivo experiments to test the technologies we build.
Two questions drive much of our work: how acoustic cavitation can be directed to manipulate soft materials, and how diverse material properties and architectures affect acoustic cavitation.
One of our main interests lies in developing our technology to understand and perturb fibrotic environments. For instance, desmoplastic tumors, where a dense and stiff collagen-rich stroma walls off the tumor and blocks drugs from reaching it. Another example include chronic blood clots, which stiffen and grow resistant to thrombolytic drugs as they age. Although these examples represent very different diseases, they have the same underlying problem. Both resist treatment because of what their matrix is made of, how it is built, and the biomechanical cues it provides. Ultrasound, being non-invasive and purely mechanical in nature, is uniquely positioned to probe and perturb this environment.
Core philosophy
Our research philosophy hinges on the question — how, and why, is something happening? Understanding the mechanism underlying a phenomenon fuels and strengthens our interdisciplinary work to find implementable solutions for challenges across every stage of the bench-to-bedside chain.