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Dr. Marvin Doyley, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been awarded a $1.9 million grant from the National Institute of Health's (NIH) National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute for his research entitled "Intravascular ultrasound detection of rupture prone plaques." The goal of this five-year grant is to develop new ultrasonic imaging methods to identify life-threatening atherosclerotic plaques in the general population.

"I am very excited about this grant," says Doyley. "It will provide the funds that will enable us to develop a vibrant research program in cardiovascular imaging. Cardiovascular disease is a major concern because it kill more Americans than all cancers combined. This problem is due in part to the lack of an effective imaging technique to properly diagnosis coronary atherosclerosis. In this research, we will develop new imaging tools that will enable the interventional cardiologists to properly diagnosis the severity of cardiovascular disease."

Stresses arising from hemodynamic and other biological factors can rupture the thin fibrous cap of an atherosclerotic plaque, possibly triggering a heart attack or stroke. Doyley's team will develop ultrasonic imaging technology to (a) visualize the circumferential stress distribution within the fibrous cap to identify vulnerable regions, and (b) assess the extent of macrophage infiltration within coronary atherosclerotic plaques, the inflammatory cells that weaken the fibrous cap.

Doyley's multidisciplinary team consists of collaborators in industry (Targeson Inc. and Boston Scientific/Scimed), medical physics (Thomas Jefferson University), engineering (Renato Perucchio, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, UR), and cardiology (Frederick Ling at URMC).

Doyley first began developing imaging tools for cardiovascular imaging as a postdoctoral research fellow at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In 2000, he was co-recipient of the "Certificate of Merit" at RSNA in Chicago, USA for his PhD research in freehand elastography. Doyley joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Rochester in 2008.