Andreas H. Hielscher

Andreas H. Hielscher is a biomedical engineer whose research has focused on biomedical optics, optical tomography, and diffuse optical tomography for medical imaging. He is a professor at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering, where he was appointed founding chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering in 2020. He directs the Clinical Biophotonics Laboratory, which develops optical imaging methods for clinical applications including cancer, vascular disease, arthritis, and brain imaging. In 2013, he was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering for contributions to the design, development, mathematical modeling, and clinical application of optical imaging systems.

Education and early career

Hielscher studied physics at Leibniz University Hannover, receiving a Diplom in 1991. He then pursued doctoral studies in electrical and computer engineering at Rice University, completing his Ph.D. in 1995 under Frank Tittel, Antonios Mikos, and Nobel Laureate Robert Curl. His dissertation was entitled Noninvasive determination of blood oxygenation in the brain by near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy.

After completing his doctorate, Hielscher held a Laboratory President's Postdoctoral Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he continued research on light propagation in biological tissue and optical imaging.

Academic career

In 1998, Hielscher joined the faculty of SUNY Downstate Medical Center as an assistant professor in the Department of Pathology.

In 2020, Hielscher was recruited by Dean Jelena Kovačević as the founding chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering.

Research

Hielscher's research has centered on diffuse optical imaging and optical tomography, a biomedical imaging approach that uses near-infrared light to probe tissue structure and physiology. Early in his career, he and collaborators studied radiative-transfer-based models of photon migration in biological tissue and compared transport-theory calculations with diffusion-based approximations. He later co-authored work on optical tomography reconstruction based on the radiative transfer equation.

His laboratory subsequently developed optical tomography systems for dynamic and three-dimensional imaging. These included work on optical tomographic imaging of brain hemodynamics in small animals and dynamic optical tomography for breast cancer imaging.

Clinical applications

Hielscher and collaborators have applied optical imaging methods to several clinical areas. In breast cancer, his group developed optical imaging approaches intended to monitor hemodynamic response during neoadjuvant chemotherapy. A study co-authored by Hielscher reported the use of dynamic optical tomography to evaluate breast cancer response during neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

In vascular imaging, Hielscher's group developed optical tomography approaches for assessing peripheral arterial disease and diabetic vascular complications. Related work used dynamic diffuse optical tomography to image peripheral arterial disease.

His research has also included optical methods for inflammatory joint disease. In collaboration with groups at the Technische Universität Berlin and the University of Göttingen medical school, optical tomographic methods for diagnosing rheumatoid arthritis were developed. Later work by Hielscher, rheumatologist Anca Askanase, and collaborators examined optical imaging for lupus arthritis.

Technology translation

A startup, CaroRhythm, emerged from research in NYU Tandon’s Clinical Biophotonics Laboratory and focused on a non-invasive wearable system for carotid-artery monitoring in stroke survivors.

Honors and professional activities

Hielscher was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2013 for contributions to the design, development, mathematical modeling, and clinical application of optical imaging systems.

He has served as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging and has participated in review panels and advisory activities for national and international research organizations.