News & Events

05-02-23

Using a "spooky" phenomenon of quantum physics, Caltech researchers have discovered a way to double the resolution of light microscopes. In a paper appearing in the journal Nature Communications, a team led by Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, shows the achievement of a leap forward in microscopy through what is known as quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in which two particles are linked such that the state of one particle is tied to the state of the other particle regardless of whether the particles are anywhere near each other. Albert Einstein famously referred to quantum entanglement as "spooky action at a distance" because it could not be explained by his relativity theory. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE MedE Lihong Wang

02-24-23

Researchers, led by Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, have made a major step forward in medical imaging by taking inspiration from the field of astronomy. In astronomy, the light that reaches telescopes is distorted by the earth's atmosphere, resulting in blurry images of planets, satellites, and other cosmic objects. The earth's atmosphere is what's known as a scattering medium; it scatters light, making images appear unfocused and cloudy. Wavefront shaping is a method of generating focused light by reversing the optical distortion caused by the atmosphere. In this method, a reflective device, like a mirror, "shapes" light waves to counterbalance distortion. It's similar to a person wearing active noise-cancelling headphones to combat ambient noise. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights MedE Lihong Wang

12-02-22

Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering; Andrew and Peggy Cherng Medical Engineering Leadership Chair; Executive Officer for Medical Engineering, and his research team show how they developed a new variant of photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) called needle-shaped beam photoacoustic microscopy (NB-PAM). NB-PAM has a depth of field nearly 14 times greater than what was achievable before. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights MedE Lihong Wang Rui Cao

10-07-22

Scientists have developed a new ultrafast camera that can record footage of impulses as they travel through nerve cells. The camera technology, known as differentially enhanced compressed ultrafast photography (Diff-CUP), was developed in the lab of Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering; Andrew and Peggy Cherng Medical Engineering Leadership Chair; Executive Officer for Medical Engineering. "Seeing nerve signals is fundamental to our scientific understanding but has not yet been achieved owing to the lack of speed and sensitivity provided by existing imaging methods," Wang says. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights MedE Lihong Wang Yide Zhang Binglin Shen Tong Wu Jerry Zhao Joseph Jing Peng Wang Kanomi Sasaki-Capela William Dunphy David Garrett Konstantin Maslov Weiwei Wang

09-20-22

Of the many ways to treat cancer, the oldest, and maybe most tried and true, is surgery. The goal is to remove all of the cancerous tissue while preserving as much of the surrounding healthy material as possible. "It's very hard to grow bone, so if you cut out bone, you basically lose it," says Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering; Andrew and Peggy Cherng Medical Engineering Leadership Chair; Executive Officer for Medical Engineering. A new diagnostic imaging technology developed by researchers at Caltech is offering surgeons the ability to make cuts 10 times more precisely, allowing them to preserve as much as 1,000 times more healthy tissue and to give patients easier recoveries. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights MedE Lihong Wang Rui Cao Samuel Davis Yilin Luo Yide Zhang

02-04-22

In an effort to create more opportunities for students, increase interdisciplinary research, and gain visibility for a first-of-its kind program, Caltech is creating a new graduate education track that combines medical engineering and electrical engineering. Students entering the joint track will be eligible to earn a single PhD in electrical and medical engineering, and would perform research in each field and, ideally, in a combination of the two fields. "All my students from both departments have a strong interest in this joint track," says Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering. "This will be good for them because it will broaden their horizons by exposing them to both fields. This will also allow MedE to recruit students from the EE track, and EE will be able to recruit from MedE." [Caltech story]

Tags: EE MedE Azita Emami Lihong Wang

06-07-21

Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, has demonstrated for the first time a new technology for imaging the human brain using laser light and ultrasonic sound waves. The technology, known as photoacoustic computerized tomography, or PACT, has been developed as a method for imaging tissues and organs. Now, Wang has made further improvements to the technology that make it so precise and sensitive that it can detect even minute changes in the amount of blood traveling through very tiny blood vessels as well as the oxygenation level of that blood. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights MedE Lihong Wang

01-14-21

There are things in life that can be predicted reasonably well. The tides rise and fall. A billiard ball bounces around a table according to orderly geometry. And then there are things that defy easy prediction: The hurricane that changes direction without warning. The splashing of water in a fountain. These phenomena and others like them can be described as chaotic systems. Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, has developed a new tool that might help to better understand chaotic systems. [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights MedE KNI Lihong Wang

12-10-20

Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, has been named fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Election as a fellow is the highest professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. The Wang lab has developed photoacoustic imaging that allows researchers to see into biological tissues noninvasively, and to peer deeper into the body by nearly two orders of magnitude compared to conventional optical microscopy. [Caltech story] [List of 2020 Fellows]

Tags: EE honors MedE KNI Lihong Wang

12-07-20

Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, has received funding for neuroscience projects from the National Institutes of Health's Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. Wang and his team aim to develop a technology called 3D photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) that will rapidly image large-scale neural activity in human brains with high sensitivity. "Photoacoustic imaging of adult human brains is one of the most challenging frontiers in our field," says Wang. "It requires innovation to overcome the signal attenuation and wavefront distortion due to the skull. I'm glad that the NIH has the vision to fund this worthy research direction." [Caltech story]

Tags: EE research highlights MedE KNI Lihong Wang