The Department’s first Oxford Institute of Biomedical Engineering Distinguished Lecturer Seminar was delivered by Professor Mathias Fink, Professor of Physics, École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles (ESPCI) de la ville de Paris & Collège de France and Member of French Academy of Sciences. He is also the Founder and Director of the Laboratory Ondes et Acoustique at ESPCI that in 2009 became the Langevin Institute.
Professor Matthias Fink
Professor Fink’s lecture titled: “Biomedical applications of ultrasonic time-reversal: from cancer detection to functional imaging,” provided a fascinating insight into how his research on ultrasonic time-reversal methods applied to medicine and highlighted his commitment to making an impact in the real world of healthcare.
During his lecture he explained ‘how a time-reversal analysis technique of the data from an array of receivers produces a reconstruction of the transversed medium and an image of internal subject. The time-reversal analysis is made possible because the speed of sound’. Professor Fink said: “The result is a much improved signal-to-noise ratio which allows for faster scan times and more detail, both of which lead to improved specificity for detection of density changes due to diseases like cancer”.
Professor Fink has developed different techniques in acoustic imaging (transient elastography, supersonic shear imaging), wave focusing in inhomogeneous media (time-reversal mirrors), speckle reduction, and in ultrasonic laser generation. He holds more than 50 patents, and has published more than 300 articles. Four companies with close to 170 employees have been created from his research (Echosens, Sensitive Object, Supersonic Imagine and Time Reversal Communications).
