SOUND FOUNDATIONS

Professor Gail ter Haar, PhD, DSc, has worked at the intersection of focused ultrasound and physics throughout her career, leading the therapeutic ultrasound team at The Institute for Cancer Research (ICR) until her retirement in 2025. Her work has advanced ultrasound-based cancer treatment through device and protocol development, research into immune stimulation, and applications in liver and kidney tumours. In 2014, The ICR at the Royal Marsden Hospital was recognised as the first Focused Ultrasound Centre of Excellence in Europe.

Professor ter Haar is the founding President of the International Society for Therapeutic Ultrasound (ISTU). She trained in physics at the University of Oxford, earned a master's degree in medical physics from the University of Aberdeen, and holds a PhD in physics and a DSc in clinical medicine from Oxford. She has received the Focused Ultrasound Foundation Visionary Award and the Institute of Physics Peter Mansfield Silver Medal.

Professor Wladyslaw Gedroyc (MBBS, MRCP, FRCR) is a Consultant Radiologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and one of the world's pioneers in the clinical translation of MR-guided focused ultrasound. Over the past two decades, he has been instrumental in advancing focused ultrasound from an emerging technology to an established non-invasive treatment across multiple clinical applications. Professor Gedroyc led the world's first MR-guided focused ultrasound treatment for uterine fibroids and the first bilateral focused ultrasound treatment for essential tremor, contributing to the adoption of this technology within the NHS. His research spans neurology, oncology, targeted drug delivery, and image-guided therapies, with a focus on expanding the clinical applications of focused ultrasound. As Co-Director of Imperial's Focused Ultrasound Foundation Centre of Excellence, he continues to lead multidisciplinary research that is shaping the future of non-invasive therapeutic ultrasound and improving outcomes for patients worldwide.

Professor Nader Saffari (PhD) is Professor of Ultrasonics in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London and leads the internationally recognised UCL Ultrasonics Group. Over the past three decades, his research has advanced the science and clinical translation of therapeutic ultrasound, spanning high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), histotripsy, transcranial ultrasound, ultrasound-mediated drug delivery, and cavitation physics. His team develops computational models, imaging methods, and therapeutic devices that improve the precision, safety, and efficacy of non-invasive ultrasound therapies. Working in close partnership with clinicians and industry, Professor Saffari has played a pivotal role in translating engineering innovation into clinical applications across oncology, neurology, and regenerative medicine. As a leader of the UCL–King's College London Focused Ultrasound Foundation Centre of Excellence, he continues to drive multidisciplinary research that is shaping the future of therapeutic ultrasound.

Dr. Antonios Pouliopoulos is a Senior Lecturer in Therapeutic Ultrasound in the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences at King's College London. He received his B.Sc. in Physics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2011, and an M.Sc. in Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine from University College London, United Kingdom, in 2013. He obtained his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Imperial College London, United Kingdom, in 2017. He worked as a research scientist at Columbia University, New York City, NY, USA from 2017 to 2021. He joined King's College London as a Lecturer in 2021, when he founded the Quantitative Ultrasound Imaging & Interventions (QUIIN) lab (www.quiinlab.com), whose mission is to develop the next-generation of imaging and therapeutic applications of ultrasound. His research interests include targeted drug delivery using ultrasound, microbubble dynamics in ultrasound therapy, non-invasive neuromodulation, ultrasound therapy monitoring, and clinical translation of therapeutic ultrasound.

Paul joined the Oxford thermal ablation team as a Consultant Radiologist in 2022 and routinely treats lung, liver and kidney tumours using microwave and cryoablation. Utilising previous industry experience in software engineering, Paul has developed a pilot ablation registry (TARGET-UK: The Ablation Registry: Getting Evidence Together). TARGET-UK has been designed with a view to national adoption to generate highly powered multicentre evidence across different tumour types and ablative modalities, for both service improvement and improved patient outcomes by answering relevant research questions. Paul led the TARDOX study, a first-in-human clinical trial of focused ultrasound drug delivery in liver tumours, with results published in Lancet Oncology. Paul is the Clinical Director of the Oxford HIFU service where he is developing the service, and co-director of the Oxford Focused Ultrasound Foundation Centre of Excellence. Working with the University of Oxford, Paul continues to drive forward pivotal clinical research in focused ultrasound. Paul leads the SarcAblate trial which is currently looking at safety, feasibility of HIFU ablation in desmoid tumours and soft tissue sarcomas. He has also developed interest in immunological effects of ablation and is co-supervising a clinical DPhil in device-mediated immunomodulation.

Dr. Emma Harris (MSc, PhD) is a Group Leader at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, where she leads a multidisciplinary research programme focused on the development and clinical translation of advanced ultrasound imaging and therapeutic technologies to improve cancer treatment. Her research aims to enhance the precision, personalisation, and effectiveness of therapy through innovative approaches for characterising the biomechanical and vascular properties of the tumour microenvironment and normal tissues. By understanding how these properties influence treatment response and toxicity, her work seeks to identify predictive imaging biomarkers that can inform clinical decision-making and improve patient outcomes. Working across multiple tumour types, her lab uses these data in the development of more effective focused ultrasound approaches to enhance the delivery of therapeutics to the tumour, and in combination with radiation, to improve tumour response to radiation therapies. In close collaboration with clinicians at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, she also leads translational clinical research to test novel imaging technologies for enhancing cancer treatment and monitoring patients for treatment-related side effects.