Best Paper Award at the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Communications Optimizing Drug Delivery with Advanced Techniques

Mohammad Zoofaghari, Martin Damrath, Mladen Veletic and Ilangko Balasingham
Mohammad Zoofaghari, Martin Damrath, Mladen Veletic and Ilangko Balasingham

A team from the Wireless Sensor Network Research Group at The Intervention Center, led by Prof. Ilangko Balasingham, won the Best Paper Award at the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC).
The 6-page paper, entitled "Ultrasound-enabled SIMO Channel for Targeted Brain Cancer Chemotherapy", presents a novel scheme for effectively delivering drugs across the blood-brain barrier to treat glioblastoma. It was selected from 2,340 submissions and was among only 13 to receive this prestigious recognition. 

 

Summary of award-winning work, by the authors:

Breakthrough in Brain Cancer Treatment: Optimizing Drug Delivery with Advanced Techniques

This paper presents a novel scheme for effectively delivering drugs across the blood-brain barrier to treat glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. Currently, there is no cure for this devastating disease, and patients typically have a life expectancy of only 10-13 months.

Recent advancements in hardware have made significant strides toward improving methods for drug delivery using ultrasound, electric and magnetic fields, and laser technologies. Focused ultrasound has emerged as a well-established technique for opening the blood-brain barrier for targeted drug delivery. 

Effective treatment requires the precise adjustment of various parameters, including the timing of drug injection and the sonication scheme, especially in multitargeted therapies. Addressing this critical need, our latest research has developed a novel framework using communication theory designed to assess and optimize these treatments in clinical settings.

This groundbreaking method was applied to clinical trial data involving glioblastoma patients. The results demonstrate the framework's excellent potential in enhancing the efficacy of multitargeted brain tumor treatments.

This advancement holds the potential to revolutionize brain disease treatment, instilling new hope for patients and propelling the field of medical science forward.

This work received the Best Paper Award at the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) in Denver, Colorado, on June 12. The 6-page paper was selected from 2,340 submissions and was among only 13 to receive this prestigious recognition. 

The team, Dr. Mohammad Zoofaghari, Dr. Martin Damrath, and Dr. Mladen Veletic, belongs to the Wireless Sensor Network Research Group led by Prof. Ilangko Balasingham at The Intervention Center, Oslo University Hospital, and the Department of Electronic Systems, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). 


The award-winning paper:
Ultrasound-enabled SIMO Channel for Targeted Brain Cancer Chemotherapy (PDF)