Robotics 8970 Colloquium: Dr. Joshua Stopek (Fall 2021)

Histotripsy, a novel non-invasive platform and therapy

Histotripsy uses very high amplitude and short pulses (microseconds) of focused ultrasound to induce and control acoustic cavitation in the form of a histotripsy “bubble cloud”. The negative pressure, which can exceed -25MPa in the focal zone, allows the rapid formation and collapse of nano and microbubbles (within the bubble cloud), derived from endogenous gases naturally present in the targeted tissue. As the bubbles within the cloud form and collapse in microseconds, creating mechanical forces strong enough to destroy tissue at cellular and sub-cellular levels, and without the need for ionizing or thermal energy. An image-guided robotic platform is used to deliver the therapy. HistoSonics is currently focused on developing the broad platform capability to non-invasively treat tumors across the body, initially focused on significant unmet needs in abdominal and liver tumors.

The company is also researching and developing immuno-oncology enabling therapies, which may further benefit from the tissue lysate/effect created by histotripsy treatments, potentially offering promise to turn cold tumors hot and systemic responses to local therapy.

About Dr. Joshua Stopek
Dr. Stopek has more than 20 years of R&D leadership experience, including a strong background in developing image-guided technologies, new therapy platforms and combination devices to market. He currently is Vice President of R&D for HistoSonics. He formerly led R&D in various business areas at Medtronic, Covidien and US Surgical. Prior to that, he was the co-founder and VP of a startup medical device company, VMSI, working on new minimally invasive and tissue regeneration therapies. Dr. Stopek has over 200+ issued and pending patents. He received his BS, MS and PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Florida, where he also completed a fellowship in Neurosurgery and Neuroscience.