Improving healthcare with light and sound
The Photons+ Ultrasound Research Laboratory (PURL) at King’s College London was founded in 2018 as part of the Department of Surgical and Interventional Engineering at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences. At PURL, we are committed to transforming the ways that surgical and interventional procedures are performed via ground-breaking technological innovations. We are fascinated by how light and sound interact with biological tissue, and how this interaction can be used for patient benefit. In particular, our research is focused on the technological advancement and clinical translation of photoacoustics (also called optoacoustics), an emerging imaging and sensing technique that uses light to generate ultrasound.
We are grateful for the funding support provided by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and the Academy of Medical Sciences. We are closely linked to the recently completed GIFT-Surg project and the Wellcome / EPSRC Centre for Medical Engineering and are collaborating with the Beijing Institute of Collaborative Innovation on a translational project. Our PhD students are supported by the King’s Medical Research Trust, the King’s-China Scholarship Council PhD Scholarship programme, the Centre for Doctoral Training in Surgical and Interventional Engineering, and the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Smart Medical Imaging.