Academic Background

Constantin Coussios was appointed to the first statutory professorship in Biomedical Engineering in January 2011, in the general area of drug delivery . He heads the Biomedical Ultrasonics and Biotherapy Laboratory (BUBL) in the Oxford Institute of Biomedical Engineering . He holds a B.A., M.Eng., M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. During his time as an undergraduate and graduate student, Dr. Coussios was the recipient of the Shell European Project Prize (1997), the Greek State Graduate Scholarship (1999-2001), the Acoustical Society of America best student paper award (2001) and the Hamilton Prize (2001). He then had the opportunity to work as a post-doctoral researcher under some of the world's leading experts in acoustic cavitation, including Prof. C.K. Holland at the University of Cincinnati (Ohio, USA, 2001-02), on developing a novel ultrasound-enhanced thrombolysis system for stroke therapy, and Prof. R.A. Roy and Prof. R.G. Holt at Boston University (Mass, USA, 2002-03). He was awarded the 2002-2003 F.V. Hunt Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Acoustics by the Acoustical Society of America, given annually to a single researcher worldwide, which he devoted to investigating new means of cavitation detection in tissue and tissue-mimicking media during cancer treatment by High-Intensity Focussed Ultrasound. Prof. Coussios serves on the Acoustical Society’s Technical Committee on Biomedical Ultrasound and served as a board member and Secretary of the International Society in Therapeutic Ultrasound between 2006 and 2010. In 2007, he was awarded the Institute of Acoustics Young Investigator Award for Innovation in Acoustical Engineering, and was selected as one of seven nationwide recipients of an EPSRC Challenging Engineering Award. In 2009, he was elected a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America.

Research Interests

Biomedical applications of acoustics, fluid mechanics and control; Therapeutic ultrasound, for example the use of High-Intensity Focussed Ultrasound (HIFU) for non-invasive cancer therapy, and the use of ultrasound for targeted drug and gene delivery; transdermal drug delivery and methods of monitoring drug particle distribution and dissolution; Normothermic isolated organ perfusion for targeted drug and gene delivery, as well as organ preservation and repair prior to transplantation.

Selected Publications

B. Rifai, C. Arvanitis, M. Bazan-Peregrino and C.-C. Coussios, ‘Cavitation-Enhanced Delivery of Macromolecules into an Obstructed Vessel ’, JASA Express 128(5) EL310-315 (2010).

N. Hockham, A. Arora and C.-C. Coussios, 'A Real-Time Controller for Sustaining Thermally Relevant Acoustic Cavitation during Ultrasound Therapy', IEEE UFFC 57(12): 2685-2694 (2010).

J. Condliffe, H. Shiffter and C-C. Coussios, ‘An Acoustic Microscopy Technique to Assess Particle Size and Distribution Following Needle-Free Injection’, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127(4) 2252-2261 (2010)

I.R. Webb, M. Arora, R.A. Roy, S.J. Payne and C.-C. Coussios, ‘Dynamics of Gas Bubbles in Time-Varient Temperature Fields’, Journal of Fluid Mechanics 663: 209-232 (2010).

M. Gyongy and C.-C. Coussios, ‘Passive Spatial Mapping of Inertial Cavitation during HIFU Exposure”, IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng. 57(1):48-56 (2010)

E. Stride and C.-C. Coussios, ‘Cavitation and Contrast – The Use of Bubbles in Ultrasound Imaging and Therapy’, Journal of Engineering in Medicine 224(2):171-191 (2010)

J. Brockmann, S. Reddy, C.-C. Coussios, D. Piggott, D. Guirriero, D. Hughes, R. Morovat, D. Roy, L. Winter and P.J. Friend, ‘Normothermic Perfusion: a New Paradigm in Organ Preservation’, Annals of Surgery 250:1-6 (2009)

C.-C. Coussios and R.A. Roy, ‘Applications of Acoustics and Cavitation to Non-Invasive Therapy and Drug Delivery’, Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics Vol. 40:395-420 (2008).

C.-C. Coussios, C.H. Farny, G. ter Haar and R.A. Roy , ‘Role of Acoustic Cavitation in the Delivery and Monitoring of Cancer Treatment by High Intensity Focussed Ultrasound (HIFU)’, International Journal of Hyperthermia 23(2): 105-120 (2007).

S Datta, C.-C. Coussios, L.E. McAdory, J. Tan, T. Porter,G. De Courten-Myer, C.K. Holland, ‘Correlation of cavitation with ultrasound enhancement of thrombolysis’, Ultrasound Med. Biol 32: 1257-1267 (2006).

C.C. Coussios, C.K. Holland, L. Jakubowska, A. Nagaraj, D.D. McPherson, S.-L. Huang, R.C. McDonald, ‘In Vitro Characterization of Liposomes and Optison® by Acoustic Scattering at 3.5 MHz’, Ultrasound Med. Biol. 30(2): 181-190 (2004)

C.-C. Coussios, “The Significance of Particle Shape and Orientation in Single-Particle Weak-Scatterer Models”, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 112: 906-915 (2002)