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Dr James McLaughlan

Dr James McLaughlan

  • Position: Associate Professor
  • Areas of expertise: Diagnostic Ultrasound; High Intensity Focused Ultrasound; Acoustic Cavitation; Microbubbles; Plasmonic Nanoparticles; Photoacoustic Imaging; Photothermal Therapy; Drug Delivery.
  • Email: J.R.McLaughlan@leeds.ac.uk
  • Phone: +44(0)113 343 0956
  • Location: 252 School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering

Profile

James received his M.Phys. degree from the physics department at Bath University, where he spent at year working with high power lasers at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories in Oxfordshire. He completed his Ph.D. at the Institute of Cancer Research (University of London), investigating the optimisation of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) cancer treatments through the use of cavitation. After this, he started as a postdoctoral research assistant in the Mechanical Engineering department at Boston University (USA), where he investigated the use of light absorbing nanoparticles for cancer imaging and therapy.

He joined the ultrasound and instrumentation research group in the School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Leeds in 2010, where he was working as part of multidisciplinary team engineering therapeutic microbubbles for the treatment of colorectal cancer. This work is currently undergoing pre-clinical testing with an aim towards ‘first in man’ studies.

In 2013, he was awarded a Leverhulme early career fellowship for a project entitled ‘Nanobombs for breast cancer diagnosis and therapy’, where he is combining cancer targeted nanoparticles with light and sound for a novel approach for the identification and treatment of early breast cancer.

At the end of 2015 he started as a joint University Academic Fellow (UAF), between the faculties of Engineering and Medicine and Health, where his broad aims are to develop minimally invasive technologies for cancer imaging and therapy for both pre-clinical and clinical applications. A cross faculty post is very beneficial for this work as technology designed and constructed in engineering can have a direct clinical application.

Responsibilities

  • Deputy Director IRASS
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://eps.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>

Qualifications

  • MPhys
  • PhD

Student education

I am module leader for both MEDP3514 and MEDP5314M

I presently teach physics of ultrasound on ARCS5256M

Research groups and institutes

  • Institute of Robotics, Autonomous Systems and Sensing

Current postgraduate researchers

<h4>Postgraduate research opportunities</h4> <p>We welcome enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants from all around the world who are interested in PhD study. Our <a href="https://phd.leeds.ac.uk">research opportunities</a> allow you to search for projects and scholarships.</p>
Projects
    <li><a href="//phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/2078-robotic-tendrils-for-high-density-laser-light-delivery-in-lung-cancer-therapy">Robotic Tendrils for High-Density Laser Light Delivery in Lung Cancer Therapy</a></li>