IEEE WIE Distinguished Lecturers Program (Virtual)

Paola Saccomandi is Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI), in the field of Thermal and Mechanical Measurements. She graduated with honours in Biomedical Engineering from Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma in 2010, and obtained the PhD in 2014. In 2016 she moved to the Institute of Image-guided surgery of Strasbourg (France). In 2018 she joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering of POLIMI, where she currently holds an academic faculty position. She is now the Head of Laboratory of Measurements for Biomedical Applications. Main research interests of Paola and her team include quasi-distributed and distributed fiber optic sensors (FOSs) and imaging (e.g., magnetic resonance and hyperspectral imaging), and the development of light-based approaches for hyperthermal tumor treatment and monitoring. She is also working on SPR-based FOSs for biomolecules and environmental monitoring, and wearable devices embedding FOSs for physiological parameters monitoring during sport and for prosthetics. For the results of her research, in 2023 Paola has been listed among the world’s top 2% scientists. She was recipient of several awards, including Premio Italia Giovane, field Biomedicine, and best paper awards at IEEE conferences. She is the PI of two European Research Council (ERC) projects and Supervisor of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship. She is the PI and the Unit Responsible of several national grants, from Cariplo Fundation, the Italian Ministry of University and Research and National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work. During her PhD and postdoc, she coordinated many research projects funded by international grants (IHU Institute of Image Guided Surgery of Strasbourg, USIAS Institut d’Etudes Avancées de l’Université de Starsbourg) and has actively participated in Italian projects focused on sensors for biomedical applications. She has authored over 250 peer-reviewed publications related to sensors technology and application to the biomedical sector. She is Section Board Member for Sensors MDPI. She has been invited lecturer in many leading Institutions, including Technion (Israel), Sungkyunkwan University (South Korea), Politecnico di Torino, and organizations, like OPTICA (Biosensors Technical Group). Since 2012 she is member of IEEE and IEEE societies. Since 2020 she has been elevated to the grade of IEEE Senior Member. Currently, she is the elected Chair of the IEEE EMBS Technical Community on Therapeutic Systems & Technologies, the Chair of Women in Sensors (IEEE Sensors Council), and the elected vice-Chair of IEEE Women in Engineering (Italy AG). She is Co-founder and Officer of the IEEE Italy Sensors Chapter. She served as Technical Program Chair for MetroInd4.0&IoT 2020 and 2021, and for MeMeA 2021. She was Technical Program Committee member of 3 MeMeA eds. She organized 12+ workshops and special sessions at IEEE conferences, like EMBC, I2MTC, MetroInd4.0&IoT, MeMeA. She is Distinguished Lecturer for IEEE Sensors Council (2024-2026).

Abstract:

Lecture 1.
Energy-based image-guided interventions provide a minimally-invasive treatment option for cancer patients who may not be surgical candidates, with limited systemic toxicity, and the potential to synergize with other therapeutic modalities. Achieving optimal therapeutic outcomes relies on precise and conformal energy delivery localized to targeted tissues.
Small-size and flexible fiber optic sensors (FOSs) are increasingly entering in the design of minimally invasive medical devices. Technologies based on high-density Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs) or distributed sensing, based on Brillouin and Rayleigh scattering, allow for accurate and spatially resolved information along the entire length of a surgical instrument (pressure, strain, temperature), without the use of additional devices. Thus, recently, FOSs have emerged as optimal tool to control energy-based therapies, thus providing temperature monitoring with millimetric spatial resolution for thermal-based therapies for localized tumors.
This lecture will present emerging applications of FOSs for thermometry and feedback-controlled delivery of thermal treatments. FBGs and distributed sensors will be described and discussed for their capability to perform the accurate analysis of the thermal effects of medical devices for thermal therapies and to tune and validate organ-specific numerical models for the prediction of temperature distribution in biological tissues. Emerging application of FBGs for the investigation of the thermal response of nanomaterials intended for photothermal therapies will also be presented.
While FOSs allow measuring and controlling the tissue temperature distribution evolving during laser treatment, novel solutions are needed to directly monitor the thermal state of biological tissues. Thus, this lecture will also present an innovative hyperspectral imaging approach for monitoring and predicting the thermal state of biological tissues, using its optical “fingerprint” as sensor.

Lecture 2.
Sensing solutions based on optical-fiber technology exhibit numerous advantageous features, which make them ideally suited for a broad variety of applications in life sciences, medical monitoring and diagnostics. Fiber optic sensors (FOSs) are indeed characterized by small size (diameter in the order of tens to hundreds of µm), lightness, flexibility, high accuracy, intrinsic safety, compatibility with diagnostic systems, immunity to external electromagnetic fields, no voltage or current flow in the fiber, possibility of continuous monitoring, and multiplexing capabilities. These features are highly desirable for healthcare monitoring and application in the biomedical field.
Distributed and quasi-distributed sensing approach allow performing multipoint measurements with single interrogation units, and sensors can be easily embedded in medical devices. These sensors are mostly used for thermal and mechanical measurements of biomedical quantities, such as biomechanical parameters, pressure, and physiological or supraphysiological temperature reached during thermal therapies for cancer treatment. Moreover, the combination of the fiber optic technology with nanomaterials has opened the door to the design of novel sensors based on surface plasmon resonance or lossy mode resonance, which are mostly oriented to biosensing, and are studied to detect pathological cells or the presence of dangerous substances in the body and in living environments.
Thus, this lecture will present a broad spectrum of applications of FOSs to be used for healthcare applications, including: thermometry during thermal therapies in oncological field, the characterization of tissue thermal properties, the monitoring of prosthetic devices and development of 3D printed patches embedding fiber Bragg grating sensors to be used for fabrication of wearable systems for sport activities monitoring. FOS-based biosensing applications for the detection of biomolecules and environmental quantities will also be introduced and discussed.