Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) gained significant attention of biomedical community as it provides optical
absorption contrast based functional and molecular information of very deep biological tissue at ultrasonic
resolution. In the last two decades, PAI evolved as a multi-scale imaging technology, enabling in vivo imaging from organelles to organs, and translated to several clinical applications such as breast and thyroid imaging. Nevertheless, the development of PAI systems for internal organs (e.g., prostate and ovaries) in the clinic has its challenges. In the first part of my talk, I will present the development of a transrectal ultrasound and photoacoustic (TRUSPA) human prostate imaging system, and its validation in various phantoms, surgically removed human prostates, in vivo mouse models of prostate cancer, all the way to the first-in-human multispectral photoacoustic human prostate imaging results. In the second part of my talk, I will introduce some new research developments in my lab. This includes results from a multimodal thermoacoustic simulation platform, novel ultrasound transducers for high throughput and wearable
photoacoustic imaging, and low-cost portable photoacoustic imaging systems.