Surgery with sound waves: delivering acoustic energy to the body for ultrasound surgery (histotripsy)

Abstract:
Histotripsy is a non-invasive, non-thermal, and non-ionizing tissue ablation method that was recently (Oct. 2023) approved by the FDA for the non-invasive treatment of liver tumors. Histotripsy is a platform technology, with the potential to enable truly non-invasive surgery for many applications throughout the body, from the abdominal region to the limbs, brain, and spine. However, we currently cannot perform histotripsy everywhere in the body due to limitations in our ability to safely deliver sufficient acoustic energy to the target through heterogeneous, attenuating bodily tissues. In this talk, I will present my work to (1) numerically model and quantify acoustic energy delivery to the body, and (2) optimize acoustic energy delivery through complex tissues via adaptive signal processing methods. I will discuss how these technologies will help expand the region where we can perform histotripsy, broaden the population of patients who can receive histotripsy treatment, and enable novel histotripsy applications.

Bio:
Dr. Ellen Yeats is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and member of the Histotripsy Lab, where she is advised by Dr. Zhen Xu and Dr. Timothy Hall. She received her B.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University in 2017 and her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2024. In 2025, Dr. Yeats was awarded an NIH T32 Training Fellowship through the Michigan Translational Imaging Program (M-TIP) with the Department of Radiology of University of Michigan Medicine, where she is working with Dr. Shane Wells to develop improved imaging guidance and targeting for histotripsy. Through her research, Dr. Yeats develops technologies that optimize the targeting and delivery of acoustic energy to the body for histotripsy. Her work aims to improve current clinical histotripsy treatments in the liver and to expand histotripsy applications to new, challenging targets in the pelvis and spine.