Michael Insana - Molecular Scale Imaging Technologies for Imaging Breast Cancer

Michael Insana is not only head of the Bioimaging Science and Technology group at Beckman but also a leader in developing novel ultrasonic instrumentation and methods for biological imaging. Insana is part of a Beckman seed proposal with four other Institute collaborators  Thomas Huang, Zhi-Pei Liang, Stephen Boppart, and Rohit Bhargava  for developing molecular scale imaging technologies for imaging breast cancer.

Insana, interim head of the Bioengineering Department at Illinois, is interested in biomedical imaging and biological modeling and instrumentation. His research focuses on "the development of novel ultrasonic instrumentation and methods for imaging soft tissue microstructure, elasticity and blood flow" toward understanding the "basic mechanisms of lesion formation, disease progression, and responses to therapy."

One project of Insana's lab is development of applications for imaging the elasticity of breast tissue, a diagnostic technique that will allow noninvasive visualization of soft tissue stiffness. A current project in Insana's Ultrasonic Imaging Laboratory measures the elasticity of cancer tissue using sonographic imaging, a technique that converts high-frequency sound waves into a picture on a video monitor. Their goal is to dynamically optimize diagnostic capabilities for different examination types and patient physiologies and therefore significantly improve diagnosis of breast cancer, a disease that affects one in eight American women.

In this video, Insana talks about the role his research plays in advancing bioimaging technology, especially sonographic imaging, as well as the importance of elasticity imaging for diagnosing breast cancer, how this technology can track tumors, and the advantages it offers to patients.

©2008 Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign