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Faculty Profile

Hanli Liu – Lighting the Way to Better Health

Bioengineering Professor Hanli Liu is on a life-saving quest and is using near-infrared light to show the way.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in physics from Beijing Normal University, Dr. Liu journeyed to Wake Forest University in North Carolina for her graduate studies. She conducted investigations in the optical spectroscopy of semiconductors and insulators before receiving a doctorate in applied physics in 1992.

Dr. Liu was a research associate until beginning a postdoctoral fellowship in 1994 in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania, where she redirected her career training while working with the noted Dr. Britton Chance on biomedical optics and instrumentation. This led her to focus on medical imaging using near infrared (NIR) light, particularly for tissue characterization and tumor diagnosis.

Thinking back about the research experience at the University of Pennsylvania, she said, “The working experience and training with Dr. Chance was exciting and unforgettable in my life. It provided me with the invaluable opportunity to learn new knowledge, interact with world-class scientists and clinicians, expose myself to a broad range of research fields, and retrain myself with expertise in tissue optics and diffuse optical imaging. I gradually grew into an active, independent, and well-connected researcher.”

Dr. Liu joined UT Arlington in 1996, continuing her biomedical imaging research and teaching courses in the biomedical engineering program conducted jointly by UT Arlington and the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. She had two goals; the development of non-invasive NIR spectroscopy and tomographic imaging for tumor therapy monitoring and prognosis, and the development of minimally-invasive, miniaturized NIR probes for mapping anatomical structures of the human brain to assist neurosurgery.

Believing that biomedical engineering is a truly interdisciplinary field, Dr. Liu established active research programs with other faculty at UT Arlington and with physicians, life scientists and clinicians at UT Southwestern and the University of North Texas’ Health Science Center in Fort Worth. It was through these collaborations and her independent studies that, since coming to UT Arlington, she was listed as the Principal Investigator or Co-principal Investigator on projects valued in excess of $8 million.

“Close collaboration with clinicians is vital for us since first-hand experience and direct feedback from them can guide us to develop clinically-meaningful medical devices. Every single grant I have secured was a result of collaboration with clinicians or life scientists. I believe this is the only effective way to translate engineering development from bench to bedside,” said Dr. Liu.

Over the last few years, Dr. Liu has also extended her research in two new areas: (1) non-invasive human brain imaging using both functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate certain neurological disorders and to monitor corresponding therapies, and (2) the implementation of novel, minimally-invasive optical spectroscopic means to guide prostate cancer biopsy. For example, her latest project is the development of an optical detection system for prostate cancers. “Currently, physicians rely on needle biopsy through ultrasound guidance,” she explained. “However, ultrasound is not able to show cancerous lesions, so the area sampled may not be the site of the cancer.” This randomness could result in the patient being under-treated or over-treated: Under treatment may mean death; over treatment may cause unnecessary impotence or incontinence.

Her proposed method will allow physicians to find suspicious lesions that may have cancer, correctly estimate the severity of the cancer and identify tiny, low-grade cancers that are not likely to cause problems. The project is being funded by a $518,000 grant from the Department of Defense’s Prostate Research Program.

What’s next? As a biomedical engineer specialized in tissue optics and spectroscopy, Dr. Liu continues her quest to translate her own research advances into real medical world applications, i.e., develop practical medical devices used in clinics. “I hope one day I can proudly tell and show my students medical devices that originated in our research lab at UT Arlington, particularly in the area for prostate cancer detection.”