In a feasibility study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have shown that an innovative, non-invasive technique can rapidly create three-dimensional images of the human body from head to toe. The technology combines ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging, which captures sound waves generated by light, to simultaneously obtain images of tissue and blood vessels. The findings, just published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, have the potential to fill existing gaps in medical imaging. Imaging techniques are an indispensable part of modern medicine, playing a vital role in the treatment of injuries, infections, cancer, chronic diseases, and much more. However, today's gold standard methods – ultrasound, X-ray, computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) – each have their limitations. These include the cost and time involved in each examination, as well as...