Page TitleHigh Intensity Ultrasound Heating of Biological Tissue

Speaker: Siv Sivaloganathan , University of Waterloo

Date: October, 19
Time: 4 pm 
Room: LH3058 (Lazaridis Hall, Room 3058)

Abstract: Over the past decade, High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) has emerged as an important novel therapeutic modality in the treatment of cancers that avoids many of the associated negative side effects of more well-established cancer therapies (eg chemotherapy and radiotherapy). In this talk, a coupled system of partial differential equations is used to model the interaction of HIFU with biological tissue. The mathematical model takes into account the effects of both diffusive and convective transport on the temperature field when acoustic (ultrasound) energy is deposited at a particular location (focal point) in the biological tissue. The model poses significant challenges in establishing the existence and uniqueness of solutions. In this talk, we will briefly discuss the well-posedness of our model and the long-time dynamics of solutions to this model, in the case where the external forcing is quasi-periodic. We will also outline a number of different potential therapeutic applications of HIFU.

Bio: Dr Siv Sivaloganathan is a Professor and Head of the Biomedical Research Group in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Waterloo and Director, the Centre for Mathematical Medicine at The Fields Institute. He was a senior scholar and postdoctoral research fellow at Oxford University prior to taking up a faculty position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Alberta. He subsequently joined the University of Waterloo where he was Associate Chair of the Department of Applied Mathematics (1994-2002). His expertise is in the field of biomechanics and the development of mathematical models of clinical conditions and diseases using continuum mechanics. He has been Principal Investigator on several grants including NSERC Collaborative Health, Hospital for Sick Children Foundation, and CITO grants.