Our October 26, 2023 webinar featured Innovative Strategies with Therapeutic Ultrasound, A Rising Scientists in Therapeutic Ultrasound Special Session. This series provides postdocs and early career scientists (Asst Prof.) a platform to share their work. This session featured three speakers and their individual lectures with Q & A.
About the Speakers
Tali Ilovitsh is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Israel. She holds a B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Bar Ilan University, Israel. Between 2016-2019 she was a postdoctoral researcher at Professor Katherine Ferrara lab, initially at University of California Davis, and then at Stanford University School of Medicine, where she was working in the fields of ultrasound therapy and imaging. Dr. Ilovitsh lab is focused on the development of optically-inspired ultrasonic techniques for the establishment of new ultrasound imaging methods. In the field of ultrasound therapy, she investigates the interaction between sound waves and gas-bubbles, as a mechanism for enhanced vascular permeability, which enables safe and transient blood brain barrier opening and drug and gene delivery. Dr. Ilovitsh has received many recognitions for her scientific contributions to the fields of ultrasound and optics, and she is a recent recipient of an ERC starting grant.
Talk Title: Nanobubble-mediated BBB opening as a platform for enhanced delivery to brain capillaries
Farshad Moradi Kashkooli is an academic researcher from Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada. From 2015-2021, Farshad conducted his Ph.D. training at the K.N. Toosi University of Technology and the University of Waterloo. To date, he has published over 70 peer-reviewed papers, 3 book chapters, and several conference presentations focused on Biomedical Physics, Biomedical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. He has been Guest Editor for three scientific journals and has an Associate Editor role in the journal Technology in Cancer Research & Treatment.
Farshad’s research efforts have received noteworthy recognition. In 2018, he was the recipient of the Best Doctoral Researcher award from K.N. Toosi University of Technology among 800 Ph.D. students. In 2023, he was awarded the highly prestigious Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship, becoming the first recipient from Toronto Metropolitan University.
Talk Title: Integrating Therapeutic Ultrasound with Nanomedicine to Target Cancer
Natasha Sheybani, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and (by courtesy) of Radiology & Medical Imaging and Neurosurgery at the University of Virginia. She also serves as Research Director of UVA's Focused Ultrasound Cancer Immunotherapy Center. Dr. Sheybani leads a translational research program centered on investigating the use of focused ultrasound for immuno-modulation and immunotherapy delivery in solid tumors. Her research also interfaces with multiple ongoing clinical investigations of FUS for breast and brain cancer treatment at UVA (NCT03237572, NCT04796220, NCT06039709). She was UVA's first-ever recipient of the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award and has formerly held the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Robert R. Wagner Fellowship, and NCI F99/K00 Predoctoral-to-Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award. Dr. Sheybani completed her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at UVA and her postdoctoral fellowship in Oncology, Biomedical Data Science and Radiology at Stanford University. She has been recognized by health news website STAT as a “Wunderkind” and was recently elected to Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30” List in Science. She has served as a Faculty Co-Advisor for ISTU's Student Board since its launch in 2022.
Talk Title: Toward delivering on the promise of focused ultrasound for immunotherapy of solid tumors
About the Moderator
Eleanor Stride, Ph.D. is the Statutory Professor of Biomaterials in the Departments of Engineering Science and the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences. She specialises in the fabrication of nano and microscale devices for targeted drug delivery.
She obtained her BEng and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from UCL where she subsequently appointed to a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship. In 2011 she joined the Oxford Institute of Biomedical Engineering becoming a full Professor in 2014.
Her work has been recognized through the award of a Philip Leverhulme prize, The Royal Society Interface Award, Engineering Medal at the Parliamentary Science, Engineering & Technology for Britain awards, Acoustical Society of America Bruce Lindsay Award (2013), IET AF Harvey prize (2015), Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists (2020). She was also made a fellow of the ERA foundation for her contributions to public engagement and promotion of Engineering, for example through the Born to Engineer series and documentaries for the BBC. She was nominated as one of the top 100 most influential Women in Engineering in 2016 and 2019, was made a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2017, of the Acoustical Society of America in 2018, an honorary fellow of the IET in 2020 and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2021.