George Lewis is a Senior Presidential and National Science Foundation Fellow in the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Cornell University, and the Chief Technology Officer at ZetrOZ Incorporated. Lewis has over 15 years of ultrasound research and development experience in industrial and medical uses of ultrasound. His bachelor and doctoral studies focused on ultrasonic applications for drug delivery, non-invasive surgical techniques and ultrasound fetal monitoring. A nominee from Cornell University for the Brilliant Ten Popular Science and MIT TR35 award, Lewis is a pioneer in the development of new therapeutic applications. He has 23 publications, 18 lectures at national medical engineering meetings, and 4 industrial research partnerships. Additionally, Lewis has owned and operated two successful small businesses with over twelve employees.

Lewis has consulted and worked with companies such as Philips, GE, AngioDynamics, Transducer Engineering and Active Grid Technologies, and has been the investigator on multiple ultrasound related projects over the last decade. In Lewis’s research position at Cornell University; his lab has translated ultrasound imaging, therapy and ablation technologies from the bench top into clinical trials in Central New York and New York City Hospitals. Lewis is currently working with medical doctors to improve wireless maternal monitoring, develop ultrasound based treatments to reduce pharmaceutical use in patients with osteoarthritis, and design non-invasive surgical treatments for varicose veins. Most recently, Lewis has begun work on a joint collaborative effort between Weill Cornell Medical Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell University BME to develop the first implantable ultrasound device for brain tumor therapy.

Lewis Research:
We are researching and developing portable and powerful ultrasound systems for therapeuticmedicine. We have developed the first and currently only, ultralow output impedance amplifier technology that is 95-99% efficient at delivering electrical energy to be converted into acoustic power. Currently, we are developing these systems for various industry and academic collaborations.

In our own lab, we are using this technology to drive pharmaceuticals into human brain tissue in a targeted manor. The overall goal is to deliver the drug into the neurological tissue where the physician wants it to be delivered, so it may be as effective as possible.

We are also interested in developing 1-2mm acoustic catheters and probes that may be implanted or guided to the brain, where they could apply therapeutic acoustic power (e.g. ablation, warming, drug-delivery, or other possible applications) applications in human/animal.

Our lab is also developing disposable fetal monitoring transducers that sense the fetal heart rate and uterin contraction is a single 1 inch diameter device. The technology is wireless and attaches to current fetal monitoring devices.

Finally, our lab has developed a low-cost electrical impedance analyzer for various impedance spectroscopic applications for ultrasonics, biology and other applications.