good morning by show of hands which I
can’t really see how many out there have
seen Star Trek for the voyage home
okay well I’m sure you recall but the
crew time travels back to 1986 San
Francisco and in this scene here
dr. McCoy has to rescue check off from
the barbaric medicine of the 20th
century well I’m here today to talk to
you about some another person that’s
that’s wrestling with and struggling
with current modded modern-day medicine
her name is sue sue is a seamstress in
Barcelona she lives outside of the city
and takes the train to work she’s
married to her highschool sweetheart and
they have three children recently sue
has been having abdominal pains bouts of
nausea and vomiting and so she went to
her doctor he ran a battery of tests did
an MRI and she got that dreaded phone
call the diagnosis was cancer liver
cancer and so she met with her
oncologist and a surgeon and they
reviewed her case more bad news the
tumor was too large to be surgically
resected which meant she had heard the
the chances of long-term survival were
greatly diminished also the tumor was
located in a place that made it
difficult for this type of therapy where
large gauge needles are poked through
the abdomen to the tumor and the heat
then kills the tumor it was too close to
a vein so her doctor recommended
chemotherapy now sue knew that
chemotherapy would likely not cure her
but it most certainly make her feel
miserable for months to come I’d now
like to take you to the Future where sue
has the potential to be offered at
therapy that uses sound energy rather
than heat or incision or chemo to to
cure her and that and so talking about
then ultrasound ultrasound has been used
many to many for many years for imaging
but researchers have been trying ways to
use ultrasound
to create heat to destroy tissues
non-invasively well Charles Cain from
the University of Michigan was taking a
different path he was using wanted to
use the the sound energy to create
mechanical forces not heat to destroy
tissue he and his colleagues at the
University of Michigan Michigan actually
found that the mechanical forces of heat
could have great benefit as compared to
heat the mechanical forces excuse me of
sound they could use it to have great
benefits those mechanical forces could
actually be a lot more precise and they
have the potential for more rapid
healing quicker quicker recovery and
less pain so Charles and his colleagues
together with the university’s
technology transfer office licensed that
technology to a newly formed company
called histo Sonics and histah Sonic’s
got to work developing a medical device
that would be able to deliver histah
tripsy and the most important component
of that is the ultrasonic transducer in
the fundamental part of the ultrasonic
transducer is the piezo electric element
this one when electrical electricity is
applied to it vibrates and those
vibrations then create an ultrasonic
wave that can propagate through tissue
now by arranging an array of these
elements in a concave formation the
transducer then becomes capable of
transmitting ultrasonic waves that then
increases sharply in strength at the
focus by by pulsing those waves we
create the history of sea effect to
destroy tissue at the cellular level now
based on this principle the vortex rx is
being developed to provide physicians
the ability to non-invasively treat
tissue the transducer is placed over the
the target in this case a tumor in the
liver sound energy passes through the
body to those tissues creating an energy
field that creates bubbles then and the
expansion and collapse of those bubbles
is what mechanically then fraction
eights those tissues
now other therapeutic ultrasound
generates vibration
that then creates heat to destroy those
tissues which could then potentially
damage other tissues nearby not targeted
because of thermal spread with histah
trip see that pulsing is provided in
very very short pulses that allows then
a mechanical force and so that the range
of destruction of that tissue can be
precisely controlled and monitored in
real time the tissue then he gets
naturally absorbed in the body after the
treatment and the natural healthy cells
can regrow this is an MRI image after
histah tripsy treatment in a preclinical
model that dark circle there is the
treatment zone notice the precise
surgical like boundaries that we treated
where we wanted to and nowhere else
now imagine sue being offered this
therapy she would lie down at a table
the transducer placed over her abdomen
sound waves then generating in the into
the body
now her physician could see in real-time
that treatment effect because the
bubbles from his to trip sea are very
easily seen under ultrasound or MRI
visualization sue could then maybe not
even need general anesthesia the precise
targeted treatment of those tissues done
without incision and without needles now
this type of treatment then is brought
forward in our company histo sonics it
takes a very special team here’s a
picture of the team there’s me and my
co-founders Tom and Jim and our first
two employees Durant does Russell and
Dan that’s me with the blonde hair and I
love this picture because it was drawn
by Russell’s daughter Justine and it
along with other art created by art are
employed by the employees children grace
the alt the walls of our office at the
company and so that the cunt the team
here is driving this technology towards
patient care and it takes a very special
team as I said we’ve been able to
educate the medical device regulators
throughout the time this time frame
about the development of the device
itself as well as the technology
fundamentals we’ve had to create new
things and solve engineering challenges
we’ve also have to tell our story this
team tells the story a lot we tell the
story to potential clinical
collaborators we tell the story to
technology resources and we tell the
Technic the story to a lot of potential
investors we’re always ready to give a
pitch to a potential investor and when
pressed I even gave a pitch at my own
son’s wedding and when we tell this
story we hear lots of things some people
say that sounds like Star Trek this
could be benign and based on healing
device to replace barbaric medicine
others say that sounds like Star Trek
that’s too off in the future that’s
unrealistic and when we get that
feedback it’s very helpful to us because
it helps us remember sue and the
millions of others who suffer from the
the pains of barbaric medicine of today
it helps us to refine the story of our
message of the future of surgery and the
future of surgery is becoming a reality
right here in the Detroit area we expect
to treat our first patient early next
year
and so when we’re here today to share
positive ideas with the world from
Detroit and I’d like to say my pipe idea
besides fighting disease with sound is
to remember sue and dismember under
millions of others who have that feeling
of hopelessness because when we remember
them and those those who have the life
of life’s work in health care we
remember the ultimate reason why we do
what we do thank you [Applause]