VISE Spring Seminar – Brett Byram, PhD, 2.15.24
VISE Spring Seminar to be led by
Brett Byram, PhD,
Hoy Family Faculty Fellow
Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Date: Thursday, February 15, 2024
Time: 11:45 a.m. Lunch, 12:00 p.m. start
Location: Stevenson 5326
Title:
All the data we cannot see—revealing hidden signals in ultrasound data.
Abstract:
Ultrasound has experienced a recent explosion of new applications and developments. Many of these approaches are already making their way into clinical practice. Unfortunately, ultrasound’s bright future continues to be clouded by low image quality—especially in wearable and interventional scenarios. Clinical exams commonly result in suboptimal images or fail completely (9-64% failure rates depending on the application and patient population). In my lab, we are developing new strategies to improve image-quality that preserves the inherent nature of B-Mode images and are consistent with the demands of advanced ultrasound methods. I will discuss our recent work developing deep image reconstruction methods to help improve ultrasound in patients with low quality cardiac and abdominal imaging exams. Next, I’ll show how the same hardware that enables advanced B-Mode imaging can be used to enhance the sensitivity of ultrasound Doppler methods to slow moving blood and enable perfusion level imaging without contrast agents. I’ll demonstrate the utility of the methods for immediate assessment and guidance of transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) procedures. I will also show that these slow flow Doppler imaging methods can be combined with other signal processing techniques to enable transcranial functional ultrasound through the adult skull.
Bio:
Brett Byram joined Vanderbilt in 2013 as an assistant professor in Biomedical Engineering. He has spent time working at the Center for Fast Ultrasound with Jørgen Jensen in Denmark, and the Ultrasound Division of Siemens Healthcare, Mountain View, CA. He currently runs the Biomedical Elasticity and Acoustic Measurement (BEAM) Laboratory, where he and others in the lab pursue solutions to clinical problems using ultrasound. His research interests include beamforming and image formation, motion estimation, blood flow imaging, and other related signal processing and hardware development tasks (with and without deep learning). He is affiliated with the Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering (VISE) and the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science (VUIIS). He is the incoming Faculty Director of ACCRE—Vanderbilt’s High Performance Compute Center, and he is the incoming chair for the NIH’s Image Technology Development (ITD) Panel, where is already serving as a standing panel member. He is the Hoy Family Faculty Fellow.