Ted Christopher, Ph.D. began his research on ultrasound technology as a graduate student, working with his advisor, Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Kevin Parker. The new technology creates a clearer image than other ultrasonic imagers.
Director of the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound Diane Dalecki commented on Christopher’s ultrasound research, developed at the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound.
“Dr. Christopher developed a new ultrasound imaging modality called tissue harmonic imaging,” Dalecki said.
The new technology is unlike other ultrasonic imagers, which produce short high-frequency sound pulses and build images from the echoes they receive because it develops its images from a high-frequency-producing distortion inside a living tissue that produced a sharper image of living tissue than had never been seen before.
“This technique is based on the nonlinear propagation of ultrasound through tissue,” she said. “The technology is a breakthrough in ultrasound imaging that produces clearer images for diagnosis.”
General Electric Company, the world’s largest producer of ultrasound equipment, will now be a licensee of the technology, along with Royal Philips Electronics and Siemens. This means that 80 percent of the U.S. ultrasound manufacturing will now use new image-sharpening technology.
“I feel both fortunate and gratified to have been able to help develop an improved medical imaging technique,” Christopher said.
Wisch is a member of the class of 2011.