Start Year 2011
Professor
Canada Research Chair in
High-Frequency Electromagnetics
Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering
McMaster University
1280 Main Street West
Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1
Canada
Tel:+1 (905)
525 9140 / ext. 27141
FAX:+1 (905)
521 2922
Microwave
Near-field Imaging of Human Tissue: Hopes, Challenges,
Outlook
More than 40 years ago, Larsen and
Jacobi experimented with microwaves in the imaging of canine kidney. Their
pioneering work triggered high hopes for a new diagnostic modality in medicine
but also identified serious challenges. Research effort in this area continues
unabated, focused especially on early-stage breast-cancer detection. The need
for alternative cancer diagnostic tools is urgent and perceived worldwide as a
high priority for research and development. Yet the very few clinical trials of
experimental microwave imaging systems have not satisfied the requirements of
today’s medical diagnostics. This talk briefly reviews past and recent
developments in near-field microwave methods for tissue imaging. In the context
of these developments, the major challenges are discussed – challenges which
have so far prevented microwave imaging from becoming a clinically viable
modality. Promising new directions of research are described that have the
potential to bring about a breakthrough. These include advances in hardware
design and characterization (sensor arrays, custom and laboratory measurement
instrumentation), methodologies for tissue-parameter characterization, and the
development of data-processing and reconstruction algorithms. Many of these new
developments draw upon recent successes of microwave and millimeter-wave
imaging systems used for concealed-weapon detection, through-the-wall imaging
and underground surveillance. Thus it is shown how the ever expanding field of
microwave imaging is converging to address some of society’s most urgent needs.
Natalia K. Nikolova received the
Dipl. Eng. (Radioelectronics) degree from the
Technical University of Varna, Bulgaria, in 1989, and the Ph.D. (Electrical
Engineering) degree from the University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo,
Japan, in 1997. Her Ph.D. studies in Japan (1994 to 1997) were supported by a
scholarship from the Government of Japan. From 1998 to 1999, she held a
Postdoctoral Fellowship of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council of Canada (NSERC), during which time she was initially with the Microwave
and Electromagnetics Laboratory, DalTech,
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, and, later, for a year, with the
Simulation Optimization Systems Research Laboratory, McMaster University,
Hamilton, ON, Canada. In July 1999, she joined the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, McMaster University, where she is currently a Professor.
Her research interests include
theoretical and computational electromagnetism, microwave imaging with
applications in biomedical diagnostics and concealed weapon detection,
nondestructive testing and security, as well as algorithms for computer-aided
high-frequency design. She has published more than 85 papers in engineering and
physics journals, and has contributed to more than 115 refereed conferences in
the fields of microwave and antenna engineering, electromagnetic theory,
numerical methods, etc. Prof. Nikolova has given numerous invited lectures and
presentations on the topics of microwave imaging, computer-aided analysis and
design, and system sensitivity analysis.
Dr. Nikolova held a University
Faculty Award of NSERC from 2000 to 2003, renewed to 2005. Since 2008, she is a
Canada Research Chair in High-frequency Electromagnetics.
She is a Fellow of the IEEE and a
member of the Microwave Theory and Techniques Society and the Antennas and
Propagation Society. She was appointed a Distinguished Microwave Lecturer in
2011. Prof. Nikolova is also a correspondent of the International Union of
Radio Science (URSI) and a member of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES). She is a registered
Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario, Canada.