Dr. Malcolm Caligari Conti is with the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science at the University of Malta. He received an ITC grant from MyWave COST Action to present his work entitled “Muscle and Adipose Mimicking Solutions for Applications in Microwave Medical Imaging” at the European Conference on Antennas and Propagation EuCAP 2019. Please keep reading to hear more about his exciting work on tissue-mimicking materials and his experience at EUCAP:
During the European Conference on Antennas and Propagation EuCAP 2019, I was asked to present on tissue mimicking solutions for applications in microwave medical imaging. The work was based on two papers, currently published in ‘IOP Physics in Medicine and Biology’ journal where I feature as an author. First, a definition of the dielectric parameters used in this study was given, followed by an outline on how in vivo and ex vivo measurements were carried out. The second section was about using mixture equations to model the effective permittivity of said biological tissue. The third and last section of the presentation was about how we can obtain tissue mimicking solutions using the mixture equations. Finally, a brief summary of limitations and further work was given, some of which were already started out by other researchers at the University of Galway and the University of Malta.
The audience showed great interest in my presentation by asking a lot of questions regarding the preparation of the tissue mimics and purchase of the chemicals. They also asked about the applicability of the solutions to breast phantoms. This was then acknowledged to be one of the next steps in the research field, i.e. that of coming up with a method of mixing the muscle tissue mimic with the adipose tissue mimic without the phases intermixing. A discussion also ensued about the next step in implementing an equation in which the percentage protein, adipose content and saline concentration of the tissue would be plugged in and a dielectrically equivalent mimic would be predicted.
I would like to thank the COST Action CA17115 for making this experience possible. I look forward to more events like these where I can spread scientific knowledge while also acquiring new networking contacts.
