PZFlex® at Weidlinger Associates, Inc., named Shutao Wang, a PhD student at George Washington University in Washington, DC, the winner of the second annual PZFlex Student Innovation Competition. The contest was open to students at academic institutions throughout the world and attracted a diverse group of applicants. It was initiated to “inspire novel uses for PZFlex software in solving today’s complex engineering problems and to advance the use of virtual tools in as many industries as possible.”
Wang plans to use PZFlex to develop new treatments for retinoblastoma, a childhood cancer of the eye that, in the United States, accounts for approximately three percent of all cancers in children under the age of 15. Traditional treatments often result in permanent loss of vision. The goal of his research is to use focused ultrasound for precision delivery of heat-activated chemotherapy drugs to tumor sites, a nonsurgical treatment that can potentially save the eye. Wang will use PZFlex to study how ultrasound moves through the complex structures of the eye on its way to the focal point, to make sure that any treatment is as controlled as possible and other delicate parts of the eye are not damaged. If successful, Wang is hopeful that his research will initiate a broader study into noninvasive treatment of this devastating childhood disease.
PZFlex Director Dr. Paul Reynolds explains that “PZFlex virtual prototyping software is leading the revolution in application development by not only allowing virtual construction of the prototype, but enabling users to economically and accurately determine how that prototype will actually perform, without ever having to build it.”
Wang will use ultrasound similar to that employed in many medical imaging applications, such as fetal monitoring, but at much higher power levels. In the same way that focusing light with a magnifying glass creates a spot of intense heat, focused ultrasound can cause temperature rises in controlled locations. Focusing the ultrasound on a specific cancer site restricts the release of the heat-activated drugs to that location, ensuring the greatest effect on the cancer and minimizing the side effects typically associated with chemotherapy.
“I am very proud to be the winner of the second annual PZFlex student innovation competition,” said Wang. “The program’s excellent time domain analyzing capability will help us to understand how ultrasound waves interact with eye tissues and to facilitate our goal of promoting ocular drug delivery via ultrasound. The PZFlex thermal solver will allow us to gain insights on how hyperthermia can be generated in ocular tumors for targeted drug delivery. I look forward to working with PZFlex staff and involving them in this exciting project.”
Wang is in the final year of his PhD studies in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (biomedical engineering focused) with Professor Vesna Zderic, PhD, at George Washington University. He is expected to complete his proposed research in a year and to publish his results with assistance from the contest’s sponsors. As the contest winner, Wang will be presented with a state-of-the-art laptop computer and a one-year license of the PZFlex simulation software with which to advance his stated research goals.
Weidlinger® Receives Tibbetts Award from U.S. Small Business Administration for Advancing Technological Innovation with its PZFlex® Software
The U.S. engineering firm Weidlinger Associates®, Inc., developers of PZFlex® received a Tibbetts Award from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).
The Tibbetts Awards honor outstanding small businesses and individuals who participate in the SBA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The Tibbetts Awards, named after Roland Tibbetts, who was instrumental in developing the SBIR program, are presented to companies and individuals from all over the United States who are beacons of promise and models of excellence in high technology. Tibbetts award winners are selected based on the economic impact of their technological innovation, and on whether they have met federal research and development needs, encouraged diverse participation in technological innovation, and increased the commercialization of federal research.
Weidlinger’s Applied Science & Investigations group initially developed PZFlex in 1992, sponsored by a Phase I/II National Science Foundation SBIR grant. The software quickly became the premier tool of the ultrasound and piezoelectric industries. The tool’s developers, based in Mountain View, California, continued to expand its technical capabilities, applicability to other industries, and user base. Nineteen years later, creative engineers throughout the world use PZFlex to develop new products. The software’s export sales per year, particularly in Europe and Japan, now exceed the value of the original grants.
"Participation in the SBIR program has been the cornerstone of our strategy for innovation within Weidlinger Associates. This allows us to address important problems for our federal government customers and to adapt our technology to benefit the private sector as well," said Weidlinger's President and CEO, Raymond Daddazio.
Large discounts to academic institutions and support of student research ensure that the software is state-of-the-art and suited to diverse areas of research. Students who are trained using PZFlex typically graduate to industry positions, broadening the software’s exposure and applicability and strengthening relationships between the academic and business communities.
“PZFlex exemplifies everything that the SBIR program was designed to do—take a creative technical idea, bring it to practice, ensure a U.S. technological advantage, and use it to grow a business,” said PZFlex Business Group Director and Weidlinger Associate Principal Dr. Paul Reynolds. “Because our software can be applied across a wide range of industries—aerospace, telecom, wireless, medical, and alternative energy, to name a few—we view it as a tool that will continue to propel advancement in emerging technologies.”
Dr. Reynolds accepted the award at a February 15 ceremony held in Washington, DC, which was followed by a reception at the White House for award recipients.
Weidlinger’s application for the award was supported by long-term users from around the world, some of whom became acquainted with PZFlex as graduate students. They included engineers from major ultrasound transducer companies (General Electric, Philips Healthcare, Siemens Healthcare, and Hitachi Ltd.), as well as SONAR (Alba Ultrasound, Material Systems Inc.), other healthcare (Medicis Technologies), and bioinformatics (Sonavation, Inc.) companies. PZFlex distributors in Japan (CTC), and universities in the United States (USC).
WAI Complete Phase 1 of the MediFlexTM Toolkit Module for Focused Ultrasound Surgery for NIH
WAI recently delivered their first version of their first graphical toolkit for MediFlexTM, the suite of tools aimed at biological and medical applications, to simplify the planning and research of focused ultrasound surgery (FUS). FUS concentrates acoustic waves to small points, causing intense heating and destruction of tissue, just as a magnifying glass does with sunlight. Applications in cancer therapy and other non-invasive surgeries are on the increase, and are predicted to improve outcomes and reduce healing time over traditional surgical methods. With the Toolkit, researchers can quickly test new FUS regimes, learning the most appropriate ways to treat each condition.
This Toolkit was developed as part of an NIH funded SBIR grant, targetting advanced numerical simulation tools and methods to bring their power into the hands to medical and biological researchers. "We are delighted to deliver MediFlex to our partners at George Washington University, as well as to the FDA. This is the first of many modules that will allow medical researchers to quickly access the power of advanced computer simulations without extensive training times" said Dr Paul Reynolds, Director of the PZFlex Business Unit at WAI.
PZFlex® 2.4 Release
New Version Adds better visualization of modelled results
Mountain View, CA – January 21, 2011 – PZFlex® announced the release of a new version of its virtual prototyping software for commercial and academic use. PZFlex 2.4 includes new graphic visualization toolkits for extrapolation and post processing.
PZFlex brings sophisticated modeling to desktops and is indispensable to a variety of industries. The software was originally developed in the 1980s by international engineering firm Weidlinger Associates®, Inc. to model ultrasonic probes.
“Our aim is to make life easier for creative engineers in every industry. We’ve taken our knowledge of finite element modeling and typical devices, and we’ve upgraded the software to capture the essence of the problems many product design teams face,” said PZFlex Business Group Director Dr. Paul Reynolds. “PZFlex software’s power and accuracy clears the path for advancements in emerging technologies, including wireless, environmental and medical.”
To view the full list of PZFlex v2.4 updates, click here
Discounted pricing for PZFlex is available for academic use. For larger modeling problems, a stand-alone SPFlex module available with PZFlex serves the growing field of medical therapeutics, providing accurate modeling of wave propagation over thousands of wavelengths in all acoustic media (air, water, and tissue).
For PZFlex product support and sales, e-mail support@pzflex.com or call (650) 230 0210 (U.S.) or +44 (0)141 303 8303 (Europe).
PZFlex® Provides Ultrasound Modeling for Promising Cancer Treatment
The University of Leeds announced on June 28, 2010, that they had received funding from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to establish proof of concept for a highly innovative method of applying chemotherapy directly to cancerous sites within the body. As developers of PZFlex, the world’s leading ultrasound modeling software, Weidlinger Associates, Inc. (www.wai.com) provided consulting services for the proposal and was named to the advisory board of the five-year project. The project involves many of the University’s medical and scientific faculties, the companies Epigem and Precision Acoustics, and the charity Leeds and West Riding Medical Research.
The Leeds team is proposing that existing chemotherapy drugs be carried inside the tiny gas-filled microbubbles, one millionth of a meter across, that are routinely injected into the bloodstream to obtain clearer ultrasound images (they reflect a stronger signal than the surrounding tissue). A surface chemical or antibody would cause these nanospheres to attach to the targeted region or tumor.
The normally robust bubbles will be subjected to ultrasound frequencies that cause them to vibrate and break apart, which in turn will cause the membranes of the targeted cells to rupture temporarily and fill up with a manageable but effective drug dose. This localized approach should reduce the harm caused to the body by these toxic drugs, as any unburst bubbles are excreted naturally. It will also help technicians reach heretofore inaccessible tumor sites. The bubbles, made from lipids filled with a heavy “fluorocarbon” gas, do not easily dissolve in the bloodstream.
For the full story, click here.
Student Competition
The PZFlex® software group at Weidlinger Associates Inc., announced that Andrew Dawson, a PhD student at the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, won the first annual PZFlex Student Innovation Competition. The contest was initiated to “inspire novel uses for PZFlex software in solving today’s complex engineering problems” and to advance the use of virtual tools in as many industries as possible. The highly versatile and adaptable virtual prototyping software addresses primary markets totaling hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide. PZFlex users Dr. Charles DeSilets, CTO at Liposonix, Inc., and Dr. Rainer Schmitt, CTO at Sonovation served as judges, along with PZFlex Director Dr. Paul Reynolds.