Extracting Blood Flow Information - Hector Flores' Research

ME S-STEM Scholar Hector Flores worked in the summer in the Bioheat Transfer Laboratory at UMBC to gain research experience.  His research project was to determine baseline blood perfusion rate in tumors from measured infrared temperature distribution.  This was the first time Mr. Flores worked in a research lab at UMBC.  He has learned how an infrared camera interprets irradiation received into temperature mapping of a surface.  Mr. Flores studied how a commercial software COMSOL works to simulate temperature fields in an image-scan generated mouse body and an embedded tumor.  The extracted local blood perfusion rate is useful to improve accuracy of theoretical simulations in tissue to design safe and effective heating protocols for damaging tumors.