News & Events

“Breaking the Sound Barrier” with Ultrafast Ultrasound: Cutting-edge Technologies, In Vivo Applications, and Beyond

Pengfei Song, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University

CSB 601

Over the past two decades, ultrafast ultrasound has rapidly transformed the landscape of diagnostic and preclinical ultrasound imaging. Owing to the ultra-high imaging speed ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 frames per second, ultrafast ultrasound enables the visualization and measurement of many fast and transient physiological phenomena that are intricately linked to the structural and functional properties of biological tissues. In this presentation, I will introduce the principles of ultrafast ultrasound and our recent advancements across various domains such as shear wave elastography, ultrafast Doppler imaging, super-resolution microvascular imaging, functional brain imaging, deep learning, and ultrafast 3D imaging. In addition to the technical development, I will also present preclinical and clinical applications of ultrafast ultrasound in the areas of early detection and characterization of cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Bio: Pengfei Song, PhD is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University. He was previously an Associate Professor and Y.T. Lo Faculty Fellow at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Song conducted both his PhD and postdoctoral training under the supervision of Drs. James Greenleaf and Shigao Chen at Mayo Clinic. His research interests include ultrafast ultrasound imaging, super-resolution ultrasound, functional ultrasound, 3D ultrasound imaging, deep learning, and ultrasound shear wave elastography.

Dr. Song has published 100 peer-reviewed journal papers with a Google Scholar total citation exceeding 6200 and an h-index over 40. He holds several patents that have been licensed and commercialized by major ultrasound companies and used worldwide in the clinic. Dr. Song has delivered over 30 invited presentations. He has been regularly selected to the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students for his teaching career.

Dr. Song is a recipient of the NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, the NSF CAREER Award, the NIBIB Trailblazer Award, the IEEE Ultrasonics Early Career Investigator Award, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZ) Early Career Acceleration Award, and the Campus Distinguished Promotion Award. His research program has been continuously funded by NIH, DOD CDMRP, and NSF. He is an elected Fellow of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM), a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), a Senior Member of IEEE, and a Full Member of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA).