Towards Clinical Ultrafast Laser Surgery for Applications Beyond Ophthalmology
This webinar is hosted By: Therapeutic Laser Applications Technical Group
09 January 2023 11:00 - 12:00
Eastern Time (US & Canada) (UTC -05:00)Ultrashort laser pulses can be used to achieve remarkable precision during surgical ablation. Through nonlinear interactions with tissue, ultrafast lasers can provide a largely non-thermal mechanism of ablation and a unique ability to create targeted damage within bulk tissue. These advantages have made ultrafast lasers the ideal surgical tool for various novel applications in ophthalmology. Clinical adoption of ultrafast lasers in other surgical applications remains limited in part due to the lack of a means for fiber delivery of ultrashort laser pulses as a flexible, hand-held surgical endoscope.
In this webinar hosted by the Therapeutic Laser Applications Technical Group, Adela Ben-Yakar will provide an overview of the recent advances in bringing this unique surgical tool into the clinic. Dr. Yakar will discuss the fundamental mechanisms and limitations of ultrafast laser ablation, novel techniques for overcoming these limitations, the current state of clinical applications, and conclude with our recent efforts in developing fiber-coupled probes for flexible ultrafast laser surgery and imaging.
Subject Matter Level: Intermediate - Assumes basic knowledge of the topic
What You Will Learn:
- Use of ultrafast lasers as a precise tool for surgical ablation
- Advantages of nonlinear interactions of light with tissue
Who Should Attend:
- Scientists, researchers, and professors
- Postdoctoral fellows
- Graduate and undergraduate students
About the Presenter: Adela Ben-Yakar, The University of Texas at Austin
Adela Ben-Yakar is Harry Kent Endowed Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in Engineering and completed a postdoctoral work at Stanford and Harvard Universities in the Physics Departments. Yakar's research focuses in two main research areas, including: 1) ultrafast laser microsurgery and nonlinear imaging, as applied to vocal folds and spine surgeries and early cancer diagnostics, and 2) development of high-throughput optical and microfluidic systems for drug screening using small animal models and organoids as applied to nerve regeneration, neurodegenerative diseases, and aging. Dr. Ben-Yakar is the Fellow of the SPIE, Optica, and AIMBE. She is the current Faculty Investment Initiative Program Fellow and the recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship, Zonta Amelia Earhart Award, NSF Career Award, Human Frontier Science Program Research Award, and NIH Director’s Transformative Award.
