About
Mark E. Schafer, PhD, recently joined Drexel’s School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems as a Research Professor. Dr. Schafer has extensive expertise in ultrasound system development for medical applications, including combined ultrasound and therapeutic light sources for antibacterial treatment, as well as neurological applications of ultrasound. His experience includes diagnostic, therapeutic, and surgical ultrasound, as well as lithotripsy devices, from initial design, development and testing through regulatory submission and intellectual property protection. He has been a serial entrepreneur and is a named inventor on over 35 patents. Dr. Schafer is PI on a recently awarded grant from the NIH, focused on the development of a novel catheter-based ultrasound tool for cardiac output measurement in ICU patients. The work will use piezoelectric polymer transducers, with which Dr. Schafer has extensive prior experience.
Dr. Schafer recently published the paper “Characterization of Ultrasound Surgical Devices," the definitive guide to the topic, encompassing 30 years of research and experimental validation of measurement techniques. He is currently updating an international standard (IEC 61847) on the same topic.
Working with Dr. Catherine von Reyn and several BioMed students, Dr. Schafer developed a miniature ultrasound source to investigate neuromodulation effects in fruit flies. This work will help elucidate how ultrasound interacts with neural tissue in the brain. The paper is titled, "A Miniature Ultrasound Source for Neural Modulation." The videos of fruit fly response to ultrasound stimulation can be viewed at the links below. The videos capture 15-second experiments in slow motion, showing the movement of fruit fly limbs during 5 seconds of ultrasound exposure (the timer in the upper left corner turns red when the ultrasound is on). In one case, the ultrasound stimulates limb motion; in the other case, motion is suppressed.