USC researcher Longwei Liu uses ultrasound and genetic engineering to develop targeted treatments for blindness and other diseases

USC researcher Longwei Liu, PhD, has made it his mission to develop a therapeutic strategy to narrowly target immunotherapy and gene editing by using focused ultrasound directed inside the body. This technology could have applications for diseases ranging from pediatric blindness to cancer.His goal is to address a hard-to-shake dynamic that shows up too often in medical care. Treatments effective against serious diseases such as cancer can be toxic for patients because they also affect healthy tissue. This is a problem seen even in many targeted therapies.Liu’s solution combines ultrasound with genetic engineering to act as an “on-off switch,” noninvasively activating treatment only when and where it’s needed. “Turning on only in the diseased region would maximize efficacy,” said Liu, an assistant professor of ophthalmology and biomedical engineering at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and USC Viterbi School of Engineering, and a Baxter Foundation faculty fellow. “And ensuring other organs don’t receive any stimulation would make the therapy safer.”