Yizhou Jiang, BME PhD student, was awarded the Champion at the Faculty of Engineering Three Minute Thesis Competition
Yizhou Jiang, PhD student of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, was selected as the Champion at the Faculty of Engineering Three Minute Thesis Competition (3MT®), which was held on 16 June 2023 on PolyU campus. Jiang took home the Champion by presenting the research topic “Tracking Living Therapeutics with Ultrasound Imaging”.
All participants were nominated by their departments of the Faculty of Engineering. Each department could nominate three students at most. Their performance was rated by the Judging Panel, chaired by Prof. X.W. Fu, Associate Dean (External Engagement) and comprising departmental representatives.
Developed by the University of Queensland, Australia, 3MT® cultivates the academic, presentation, and research communication skills of research students and supports their capacity to effectively explain their research in three minutes in a language appropriate to non-specialist audiences. The competition is a globally recognized competition which are now held in over 900 universities across more than 85 countries worldwide.
About the Project
The project aims at developing a strategy to “hear” from the immune cells. In recent years, the immune cell has been harnessed and deployed for the treatment of cancers, bringing us unprecedented success. In these cell-based treatment, immune cells are infused into patients’ body to executing their therapeutic functions when they accumulate in tumor tissues. This calls for strategies to follow the trace of these living therapeutic cells, when they traffic within living organisms, in a noninvasive, dynamic, cost-effective and safe manner. Exploiting the power of sound wave, in Jiang’s research, the ultrasound imaging modality is utilized for the tracking of these immune cells. Jiang exploits a type of novel nanomaterial, which is capable of generating special signal through oscillations when agitated by ultrasonic waves. The immune cells carrying these “nano-transceivers” could generate special backward signal under ultrasound imaging, highlighting their presence and positions when they infiltrate the tumor. This strategy enables the dynamic evaluation of immune cell trafficking to tumors during therapeutic transfer via ultrasound imaging, providing valuable information for making treatment-related decisions using the widely accessible imaging tool, as well as offering opportunities for exploring synergic interventions for therapy optimization.
