Research Assistant - UC San Diego, CA, USA
Dec 2015 - Nov 2016
Jesse Jokerst is an Associate Professor at UC San Diego. His research group uses biomedical imaging to improve human health. The combination of nanoparticles and photoacoustic imaging can increase contrast, which is an essential tool in diagnostics. Photoacoustic Imaging is a modality that uses light as the source and ultrasound as the measuring tool. A photoacoustic active particle will absorb light and undergo a heat expansion that causes pressure waves that can be read with an ultrasound transducer.
- I helped develop a novel technique to monitor anti-coagulation dosage during surgical procedures via Photoacoustic (PA) Imaging. Current anti-coagulation monitoring systems suffer from a time delay that could be critical for the patient. The goal of the project was to develop a real-time measuring system using Methylene Blue coated Silica Nanoparticles. The work was published in Nano Letters. Current PA systems are very large because the combine a high power laser with an ultrasound system. Posterior research on this project involved developing a wearable device to facilitate integrating PA imaging in the ICU. 
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- Using SolidWorks and Fusion 360 for modeling and 3D printing as the manufacturing method, I developed a platform to standardize the measurement of contrast agents in PA Imaging. Prior methods for comparing the signal strength of contrast agents involves long and meticulous processes such as an agar gel. This tool provides a time-efficient platform for measuring the strength of our agents in under 5 minutes. This work was published in Photoacoustics. All tests were ran on a Vevo LAZR Photoacoustic Imaging System. Furthermore, I developed a Matlab script to optimize the analysis of the images afterwards, previously this was done manually (subjectively) with ImageJ. 

- In collaboration with Professor Andrea Tao, we evaluated using Copper Sulfate (CuS) nanoparticles as contrast agents in ovarian cancer imaging. Our side of the collaboration involved working with animal models (nude mice): injecting the cancer subcutaneously, performing several tail-vein injections of the nanoparticles, and the PA measurement. Due to the size and properties of CuS nanoparticles they are good candidates for accumulating at the tumor location and emitting a strong PA signal. ​
Papers
Chen F, Zhao E, Kim T, Wang J, Hableel G, Reardon PJT, Ananthakrishna SJ, Wang T, Arconada-Alvarez SJ, Knowles JC, Jokerst JV. Organosilica nanoparticles with an intrinsic secondary amine: An efficient and reusable adsorbent for dyes. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2017, 9 (18), 15566-15576. [Link]

Arconada-Alvarez SJ, Lemaster JE, Wang J, Jokerst JV. The development and characterization of a novel yet simple 3D printed tool to facilitate phantom imaging of photoacoustic contrast agents. Photoacoustics 2017, 5, 17-24. [Link]

​Wang J, Chen F, Arconada-Alvarez SJ, Hartanto J, Yap LP, Park R, Wang F, Vorobyova I, Dagliyan G, Conti PS, Jokerst JV. A nanoscale tool for photoacoustic-based measurements of clotting time and therapeutic drug monitoring of heparin. Nano Letters 2016, 16 (10), 6265–6271. [Link]
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Presentations
Development of a nanoparticle based hybrid for the monitoring of therapeutic drug Heparin via Ultrasound-based Measurements. Frontiers of Innovation Conference. UCSD. 2016. [Poster]
#Nanoparticle synthesis #Animal models #Ultrasound #Lasers #Photoacoustic Imaging #CAD #3D printing #Matlab








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