UT Tyler Receives More Than $480,000 to Advance Ultrasound Imaging

July 22, 2024 | Hannah Buchanan

The University of Texas at Tyler received $481,440 from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health to help advance ultrasound imaging. Dr. Tahsin Khajah, UT Tyler associate professor and associate chair of mechanical engineering, serves as the principal investigator on the three-year project.

“This award marks a significant milestone demonstrating, and solidifying, the leading role engineering plays in making innovative future technology for the benefit of humanity,” said Dr. Nael Barakat, UT Tyler professor and Department of Mechanical Engineering chair. “It is also expected to bring remarkable recognition to UT Tyler as a regional and national leader in technology advancement for health care.”

Khajah’s research, in collaboration with Baylor University’s College of Medicine, will develop novel formulations and algorithms to increase the speed and affordability of ultrasound imaging. This work also has the potential to increase the accuracy of ultrasound images, at the presence of gas and bones, such as inside the rib cage and skull, Khajah noted.

“The impact of the research is very profound as it may lead to safer non-invasive therapies without the diverse effects of radiation therapy as the proposed sound waves are safe and non-ionizing,” said Khajah. “The proposed ultrafast simulations will revolutionize the range of applications, cost and availability of ultrasound technologies for therapeutic procedures. This is especially important for ultrasound focusing that requires repeated computation of the ultrasound fields, and to date, they are limited to slow, computationally intensive, offline pre- or post-processing procedures.”

As part of the project, researchers will mentor UT Tyler undergraduate students, who will be exposed to modern research on computational mathematics for biomedical imaging including geometry, differential equations, signal processing and computer programming, he added.

“This project provides an effective training ground to apply their education, and to experience what it is like to be a professional engineer working in a truly interdisciplinary team,” Khajah said. “These activities in collaborating with Baylor’s COM will empower the students and offer them opportunities to understand the impact of engineering on health care technologies, which will have tremendous impact on their future.”

Khajah joined the UT Tyler engineering faculty in 2015. He holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering from Old Dominion University as well as a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from the Sharif University of Technology in Iran.

Founded in the late 1880s, NIH is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. For more information, visit nih.gov/.

With a mission to improve educational and health care outcomes for East Texas and beyond, UT Tyler offers more than 90 undergraduate and graduate programs to nearly 10,000 students. Through its alignment with UT Tyler Health Science Center and UT Health East Texas, UT Tyler has unified these entities to serve Texas with quality education, cutting-edge research and excellent patient care. Classified by Carnegie as a doctoral research institution and by U.S. News & World Report as a national university, UT Tyler has campuses in Tyler, Longview, Palestine and Houston.

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.