A team of researchers from the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering and Medical School invented and developed histotripsy, and their efforts to bring it to the clinic to deal with human disease has earned them this 12 months’s Distinguished University Innovator Award.

Team members include: Zhen Xu, professor of biomedical engineering; Timothy Hall, research scientist in biomedical engineering; Jonathan Sukovich, assistant research scientist in biomedical engineering; J. Brian Fowlkes, professor of radiology and of biomedical engineering; and William Roberts, professor of urology and of biomedical engineering

Histotripsy is a method that uses sound waves to interrupt down diseased tissue. Designed as a noninvasive alternative to surgical procedures, the novel technology uses focused ultrasound to mechanically disrupt goal tissue, versus thermal ablation.

The technology holds promise to allow patients with diseased tissue, akin to cancerous tumors, to acquire treatment with less discomfort and faster recovery times than traditional surgery.

The Distinguished University Innovator Award is the best honor for U-M faculty members who’ve developed transformative ideas, processes or technologies and shepherded them to marketplace for broad societal impact. It was established in 2007 and is supported by endowments from the Office of the Vice President for Research and the Stephen and Rosamund Forrest Family Foundation.

What distinguishes the University of Michigan as a number one public research university is our shared perpetual pursuit of progressive solutions to the best challenges impacting communities across the globe.”

Rebecca Cunningham, U-M vp for research and the William G. Barsan Collegiate Professor of Emergency Medicine

“Together, we’re persistent in our mission to serve the people of Michigan and the world, and as a part of this collective commitment, we’ll proceed to support our research discoveries and help translate them into real-world tools and services. What the histotripsy team has developed is a major example of progressive research that should be shared broadly with the world.”

OVPR chosen this 12 months’s award recipients based on the suggestion of a various faculty selection committee that reviews a pool of nominees. The histotripsy team will receive the award Sept. 14 on the annual Rejoice Invention event on the Michigan Union.

Changing the landscape of surgical operation

“This highly collaborative team has developed a breakthrough idea with progressive hardware and software to enable the histotripsy process,” said Mary-Ann Mycek, interim chair and professor of biomedical engineering.

“They’ve published an amazing amount of knowledge showing histotripsy’s disruptive and transformational potential, created a recent subfield and formed an organization that’s making outstanding progress toward clinical translation and commercialization. The contributions they’ve made are substantial and I sit up for seeing the team’s future innovations.”

A startup company based on histotripsy, HistoSonics, was launched in 2010 with support from Innovation Partnerships, a unit based in OVPR that serves as a central hub to steer U-M research commercialization efforts.

While minimally invasive and noninvasive technologies are routinely utilized in the clinic, they’ve limitations akin to bleeding, infection, radiation and heat-induced complications. HistoSonics has developed the Edison System, which is the primary noninvasive, nonionizing and nonthermal procedure to destroy targeted tissues that’s guided by real-time imaging, alleviating the restrictions of earlier versions. They’ve completed what has been out of reach for others—to successfully utilize sound wave energy to mechanically obliterate diseased tissue.

“We’re grateful for the support we received from the University of Michigan on our journey to invent histotripsy and develop it right into a platform that may be leveraged broadly to treat patients,” Xu said. “We’d not have completed all that we now have and are available so far as we now have without Innovation Partnerships—they’ve been with us every step of the technique to go from an inventor mindset to commercialization.”

HistoSonics now employs greater than 100 people and has raised greater than $200 million. With a presence in Ann Arbor, HistoSonics embodies what the university strives for in its research commercialization efforts; it not only delivers a services or products that positively impacts patients; it also generates a big economic impact.

“Top-of-the-line parts about science is popping the not possible to possible. What our team has completed by providing an incisionless, nontoxic, painless technique to destroy disease tissue via sound wave energy is incredible,” Xu said. “I’m excited in regards to the potential of histotripsy to alter the sector of medication and cancer treatment, and eventually extend to treat many other disease types beyond cancer, akin to stroke, neurological diseases, cardiovascular diseases and skin diseases.”

The University of Michigan, Xu, Hall, Sukovich, Fowlkes and Roberts have a financial interest in HistoSonics.