Kenneth Bader

Education and Professional Appointments

Born in the hill country of southwest Indiana, Kenneth attended Grand Valley State University majoring in physics and minored in mathematics. He obtained a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Mississippi, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the department of internal medicine at the University of Cincinnati. Kenneth is  now an Assistant Professor within the Department of Radiology at the University of Chicago, and holds a secondary appointment in the Committee on Medical Physics. He teaches courses at the graduate level, and serves as the Chair of the Graduate Program in Medical Physics Diversity Committee. Kenneth is a member of the IEEE, Acoustical Society of America (ASA), and American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM). He serves on the Bioeffects Committee for the AIUM and on the Biomedical Acoustic Technical Committee and the Standards Committee for the ASA.

Research Interests

I am deeply interested in developing therapeutic strategies utilizing ultrasound physics to improve healthcare. My expertise includes histotripsy, ultrasound-triggered drug delivery vesicles, passive cavitation imaging, ultrasound contrast agents and ultrasound activated theragnostic agents, acoustic cavitation, ultrasound-enhanced thrombolysis, and ultrasound tumor ablation. As a graduate student in physics, I developed a strong background in physical acoustics and acoustic cavitation. During my initial years as a postdoctoral fellow, my research focus was 1) developing numerical models to predict the behavior of ultrasound contrast agents, and 2) ultrasound as an adjuvant therapy for thrombosis. This work included comparing the thrombolytic efficacy of both commercially ultrasound contrast agents, and rt-PA loaded echogenic liposomes. In subsequent years of my postdoctoral fellowship, I acquired an External Research Award from the Focused Ultrasound Foundation and was the Principal Investigator. The aim of this work was to aid the FDA in the development of regulatory standards for shock scattering histotripsy through the development of passive cavitation imaging to monitoring bubble cloud activity. My research has resulted in publications on histotripsy, passive cavitation imaging, and ultrasound mediated drug delivery. The research focus of my laboratory at the University of Chicago is image-guidance techniques for mechanically and thermally ablative forms therapeutic ultrasound for the treatment of chronic deep vein thrombosis, and cancerous tissue. This work is currently funded in part by an R01 award.

Publications

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Contact

5841 South Maryland Ave, MC 2026
Q 301B
Chicago, IL 60637
Phone: 773.702.8954
Email: baderk@uchicago.edu