On 20th of May 2015, Altaf Hussain successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled:
“Towards optical absorption imaging by combining photoacoustic and ultrasound modulated optical tomography”
During his PhD research, Prof.dr.ir. W. Steenbergen was his supervisor and promotor. Altaf comprehensively investigated the combination of Photoacoustic (PA) and ultrasound modulated optical tomography (UOT) for quantitative biomedical imaging and demonstrated that,
- The combination PA and UOT yields signals that are directly related to local optical absorption coefficient in turbid media.
- The combination PA and UOT enables absolute quantification oxygen saturation of whole human blood with high spatial resolution.
- The signals of reflection mode UOT as a standalone technique gives measure of the local fluence in US focus inside the optical heterogeneous turbid media.
- UOT enables depth resolved imaging of blood flow in relative manner inside the turbid media, which is the limitation of current optical techniques such as LASCA and laser Doppler.
Furthermore, based on the combination of PA and UOT, he developed a small animal imager, where he demonstrated the potential of the technique. Much of his doctoral work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, and the examination committee appreciated his contributions to the field.