General Information

Overview and Advances in Clinical Ultrasound Neuromodulation

Roland Beisteiner, MD MA graduated in medicine at the University of Freiburg (Germany) and in music at the Vienna Conservatory (Austria). He is full professor for Experimental Brain Stimulation at the Department of Neurology, Medical University of Vienna. He performed the first fMRI investigation in central alpine Europe and contributed to development of clinical fMRI as a novel diagnostic tool. He initiated development of a novel focused ultrasound technique for clinical neuromodulation therapy (TPS).

Clinical Ultrasound Neuromodulation in Movement Disorders

Professor Robert Chen received his MA and medical (MBBChir) degrees from the University of Cambridge.  He undertook Neurology residency at the University of Western Ontario (Canada), and fellowship at the NINDS, NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. He is currently Professor of Medicine (Neurology) at University of Toronto, Senior Scientist at Krembil Research Institute, Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Neurophysiology and Associate Editor of Movement Disorders.  His clinical and research interests include transcranial magnetic and ultrasound stimulation, neurophysiology and treatment of movement disorders, mapping of brain connectivity using functional MRI and EEG.  He has published over 430 research papers with H-index of 120 (Google Scholar). 

Miniaturized Focused Ultrasound Microchips for Minimally-Invasive Treatments of Brain Disorders

Tiago L. Costa is an Associate Professor at the Department of Microelectronics at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, where he leads the Therapeutic Ultrasound Microsystems Lab. Dr. Costa received his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2015, after which he joined Columbia University, NY, as a postdoctoral researcher, where he worked on ultrasound phased arrays for non-invasive neural stimulation and wireless power transfer for implantable medical devices. Since moving to TU Delft in 2019, his group has been advancing programmable ultrasound microsystems that integrate integrated circuits and microfabrication to develop innovative ultrasound technologies for therapeutic applications.

Fully Electronically Steered Ultrasound Transmit-Receive Array for Clinical Brain Treatments

Kullervo Hynynen, PhD, is Vice President of Research and Innovation and a Senior Scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute, and a Professor of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. He is internationally recognized for pioneering work in MRI-guided focused ultrasound, including foundational contributions to noninvasive brain therapies and blood–brain barrier modulation. His work has enabled new approaches to treating neurological disease, cancer, and other conditions using noninvasive therapeutic ultrasound. He has published extensively in high-impact journals and holds numerous patents related to focused ultrasound technologies. His research has played a central role in translating focused ultrasound from early laboratory studies to clinical applications worldwide.

Clinical Ultrasound Neuromodulation in Psychiatric Disorders

Jan Kubanek is an Associate Professor at Washington University, and a Co-Director of the Center of Excellence in Focused Ultrasound. His group has been developing approaches for controlled noninvasive modulation of deep brain circuits in humans using focused ultrasound. They applied the approaches to modulate symptoms of essential tremor, chronic pain, major depression, and opioid addiction. He is a co-founder of SPIRE Therapeutics Inc. to translate the resulting technologies into effective treatments in patients.

HIFU for Psychiatric Disorders

Guillem Lera Calatayud. 46. Medical Doctor graduated in Medicine and Surgery (University of Valencia, Spain). I am a consultant psychiatrist trained at the University Hospital Clínic of Valencia and hold a PhD in Medicine from the University of Valencia (2015). I currently work in private psychiatric practice at Ascires Hospital (Valencia), where I serve as Head of the Psychiatry Department. Clinical psychiatrist and educational supervisor for psychiatry residents at University Hospital de La Ribera (Alzira, Valencia). Since 2009, I have been President of the Psychiatry Teaching and Research Group at Hospital de La Ribera. 

Overview and Advances in Blood–Brain Barrier Opening

Dr. Nir Lipsman is neurosurgeon and Dan Family Chair of Neurosurgery at the University of Toronto. He serves as Program Chief of the Hurvitz Brain Sciences Program at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre where he holds the Harquail Chair as Director of the Harquail Centre for Neuromodulation. His clinical and research work focuses on neuromodulation and novel brain-based therapies for disorders of mood, cognition, and behaviour. Dr Lipsman has led multiple first-in-human and pivotal clinical trials and is internationally recognized for his contributions to translational neuroscience.

Overview and Advances in HIFU Ablation

Dr. Lozano is a functional neurosurgeon and past Chairman of Neurosurgery at the University of Toronto.  He is best known for his work in Magnetic Resonance-guided Focused Ultrasound (MRgFUS) and Deep Brain Stimulation.  His world-leading program has mapped cortical/subcortical circuits in the brain and advanced novel therapies for dystonia, Parkinson’s disease, depression, Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders. 

Dr. Lozano has over 900 publications and is the most highly cited neurosurgeon in the world (Clarivate).  Dr. Lozano has received a number of honors including the Olivecrona Medal, Salk Award, Dandy Medal and Segerfalk Award and been elected to the Royal Society of Canada, Order of Spain and an Officer of the Order of Canada. 

– Biophysical Safety of Ultrasound Neuromodulation
– Quantification of Acoustic Pressure in the Brain

Elly Martin is a principal research fellow and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow in the Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, University College London, UK.  Her research focuses on development of therapeutic uses of ultrasound for different applications including transcranial ultrasonic neuromodulation and thermal ablation of cancerous tumours, as well as investigating new uses of ultrasound, such as ultrasonic rewarming of biological materials after cryopreservation. Her work includes making quantitative comparisons between hydrophone measurements and simulations of acoustic fields, and the development and characterisation of ultrasound devices. This work underpins the development of model-based treatment planning and estimation of in situ acoustic parameters for ultrasound therapies.

HIFU for Movement Disorders

Medical degree obtained from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2003, followed by Neurology specialization at Dr. Josep Trueta University Hospital (Girona) in 2008. Advanced clinical training in Movement Disorders and neuromodulation included two clinical and research fellowships in Deep Brain Stimulation at the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery (Queen Square, London) and at CHU Grenoble, France. A PhD was awarded in 2017 by CEU San Pablo University (Madrid), along with a Master’s degree in Movement Disorders from the University of Murcia.

Clinical and research expertise focuses on Movement Disorders, with extensive experience in neuromodulation therapies and focused ultrasound techniques. Research contributions include first-author publications in high-impact peer-reviewed journals such as The Lancet Neurology and The New England Journal of Medicine. Currently coordinates the High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound program at HM CINAC in Madrid and has recently joined the Movement Disorders Unit at Hospital de Sant Pau (Barcelona). Recipient of several national and international research awards.

Overview and Advances in Clinical Ultrasound Neuromodulation

Eva Matt is a Clinical and Health Psychologist who obtained her MSc in Psychology from the University of Vienna and her PhD in Clinical Neurosciences from the Medical University of Vienna. She currently serves as a research associate at the Experimental Brain Stimulation Lab at the Medical University of Vienna, where her work focuses on ultrasound neuromodulation, neuroimaging, and neuropsychology. She played a key role in the introduction of Transcranial Pulse Stimulation (TPS) in 2019 and has since been involved in evaluating TPS in healthy individuals and clinical populations using comprehensive clinical assessments, neurophysiological methods, and multimodal neuroimaging approaches.

Confounds in Clinical Ultrasound Neuromodulation

Michael Mitterwallner holds a PhD in Psychology and is a postdoctoral researcher at the Functional Brain Diagnostics and Therapy Unit at the Medical University of Vienna. His research focuses on optimizing the clinical effects of ultrasound neuromodulation in neuropsychiatric disorders, MRI-based analyses, clinical study design, and the careful assessment of potential confounding factors.

“Starting to Walk” – Initial Steps and Challenges in Guiding a HIFU Center Vienna

Dr. Klaus Novak is a neurosurgeon at the Medical University of Vienna and serves as Head of Functional Neurosurgery and Director of Intraoperative Neurophysiology. His work focuses on interdisciplinary functional neurosurgery in adult and pediatric patients, including epilepsy, movement disorders, pain, and psychiatric disorders. He has extensive expertise in neuromodulatory and functional neurosurgical interventions such as deep brain stimulation, spinal cord stimulation, vagal nerve stimulation, radiosurgery, and MR-guided focused ultrasound

Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound of the Human Amygdala Reveals a Causal Role in Emotional Processing

Miruna is a PhD student in cognitive neuroscience interested in how people adapt their decisions across changing emotional contexts. Using transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation, she investigates the causal role of the amygdala within subcortical-cortical networks supporting flexible behaviour.

Clinical Safety in Relation to Different Ultrasound Technologies

Daniel Razansky is Full Professor of Biomedical Imaging with a double appointment at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Zurich and Department of Information Technologies and Electrical Engineering, ETH Zurich in Switzerland. Previously he was Professor of Molecular Imaging Engineering at the Technical University and Helmholtz Center Munich in Germany. He earned Biomedical and Electrical Engineering degrees from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and conducted postdoctoral research at the Harvard Medical School. His Lab pioneered several technologies for pre-​clinical research and clinical diagnostics, among them the multi-​spectral optoacoustic tomography and its multimodal combinations with therapeutic and diagnostic ultrasound, fluorescence microscopy, and magnetic resonance imaging. Prof. Razansky’s research has been recognized by the German Innovation Prize, IPPA James Smith Prize, and multiple awards from the ERC, NIH, HFSP, SNSF, and DFG. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, SPIE, and Optica Societies.

Transcranial Ultrasound Neuromodulation: Insights from Non-Human Primate Imaging Studies

Jerome Sallet holds a PhD in Neuroscience. His research centres on the neural circuits that support adaptive decision-making and social interactions in humans and non-human primates. Through a range of complementary approaches, he explores the biological basis of adaptive behaviour, spanning multiple levels of analysis from single neurons to distributed neural circuits, in both social and non-social contexts.

„Starting to Run“ – implementing HIFU as a routine tool in clinics

Cellular Mechanisms of Ultrasound Neuromodulation

Ivan Suarez-Castellanos, Ph.D., was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and earned his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering (2010) and M.S. in Electrical Engineering (2012) from George Washington University (GWU), where he also completed his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering in 2017. His doctoral research investigated the biological and biophysical dynamics of ultrasound-stimulated insulin release from pancreatic beta cells as a potential novel treatment for type 2 diabetes. As a postdoctoral researcher at LabTAU – INSERM U1032 in Lyon, France, he shifted his focus to neuromodulation, with an emphasis on focused ultrasound (FUS) neurostimulation. Since 2017, he has advanced the field by developing hybrid platforms that integrate FUS with state-of-the-art neuroscience techniques to assess ultrasound-induced neural activity, while also contributing to the design and characterization of advanced ultrasound systems based on capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) technology derived from MEMS. Since 2023, Dr. Suarez-Castellanos has served as a tenured research associate at LabTAU – INSERM U1032, continuing to develop innovative approaches and applications in medical ultrasound and neuromodulation.

Regulatory Issues with Focused Ultrasound

Steffen H. Tretbar is Head of the Ultrasound Department at the Fraunhofer IBMT, Germany. He has more than 25 years of experience in application-specific development and certification of ultrasound platforms for medical imaging and therapeutic applications. He has successfully pioneered the development of several generations of medical and technical ultrasound research platforms. He is the principal investigator in several international, European, and national research projects and for industrial companies. He is a member of IEEE EMBS and IEEE UFFCS, the German Society for Ultrasound in Medicine (DEGUM), the VDE Standards Committee, head of the Committee for Ultrasound in Medicine of the Society for Biomedical Engineering BMT, and a member of the European Focused Ultrasound Charitable Society.

Miniaturized Focused Ultrasound Microchips for Minimally-Invasive Treatments of Brain Disorders

Dr. Zhen Xu is the Li Ka Shing Endowed Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Professor of Radiology and Neurosurgery at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. Her research focuses on ultrasound therapy and imaging. She is a pioneer and world leader of histotripsy. She has developed histotripsy for cancer, neurological, and cardiovascular applications. Her work has led to the FDA approval of histotripsy treatment of liver tumors. She has been elected as a National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow, American Institute of Medicine and Bioengineering (AIMBE) Fellow, and IEEE Fellow. She received the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control (UFFC) Outstanding Paper Award in 2006, Frederic Lizzi Award from The International Society of Therapeutic Ultrasound (ISTU) in 2015, Lockhart Memorial Prize for Cancer Research in 2020, and IEEE Carl Hellmuth Hertz Ultrasonics Award in 2024.