Dustin E. Kruse

Dr. Kruse researches and develops disruptive technologies in the ultrasound imaging and therapy space. An expert in ultrasound and medical imaging, Dr. Kruse serves as Chief Scientist at DSMC developing algorithms, signal processing and image processing for SonicHD. Prior to joining DSMC, Dr. Kruse held a research faculty position at the University of California, Davis where he worked closely with internal and outside agencies to develop and integrate an image-guided, controlled ultrasound mild-hyperthermia system used to heat small tumor models in vivo. In this work, Dr. Kruse integrated a clinical ultrasound scanner into a user-controlled tissue heating device to release the contents of thermally sensitive liposomes in small animal tumor models. While at UC Davis, Dr. Kruse developed a new method for high resolution imaging of ultrasound contrast agents. He also made contributions in the area of efficient and rapid calculation of acoustic fields for ultrasound imaging and therapeutic ultrasound using graphical processing units (GPUs). Dr. Kruse was recognized by the Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation for his NIH-funded work involving the use of radiofrequency electromagnetic energy in combination with gold nanoparticles for cancer therapy. In his Ph.D. work, Dr. Kruse made significant contributions in the application of high frequency ultrasound for imaging and measuring blood flow in microcirculation. He integrated hardware and developed software to build the first high frequency color flow scanner to study blood flow in vivo and developed new algorithms for extracting blood flow information in challenging environments.

Dr. Kruse’s expertise includes: medical imaging, ultrasound imaging, high-frequency ultrasound, ultrasound tissue heating, ultrasound contrast agent imaging, microbubble targeted imaging, microbubble physics, electromagnetic tissue heating, in vivo optical imaging, cancer therapy, drug delivery, thermally-sensitive liposomes, nanoparticles, hyperthermia, mild-hyperthermia, blood velocity estimation, and digital signal processing.

Dr. Kruse earned his B.A. degree in Physics from State University of New York at Geneseo, and both his M.E. degree in Electrical Engineering and his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia. He has 28 publications, several patents and has been awarded two NIH grants.