The University of Michigan is getting a $10 million boost to research and expand the use of histotripsy, a medical advance pioneered on the Ann Arbor campus that uses precisely targeted ultrasound waves to destroy cancerous tumors without damaging surrounding tissue.
Already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat liver tumors, U-M leaders say the money will be used to advance the technology and research so histotripsy could become a future treatment option for people with kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer, brain tumors, hemorrhagic stroke, blood clots, epilepsy and more.
"Michigan is at its best when our brightest minds connect to tackle the most consequential challenges of our time," said U-M President Domenico Grasso during
a Sept. 10 news conference, announcing the $10 million donation from multiple sources, including the university's engineering department, private donors and HistoSonics, the U-M startup that commercialized the technology.
Grasso also unveiled a new, dedicated Histotripsy Center inside the Carl A. Gerstacker Building on U-M's North Campus, the first of its kind in the world.
"The University of Michigan has a tremendous legacy of scientific discovery, discoveries that have changed the world and saved thousands of lives," he said, referencing such breakthroughs as the development of an influenza vaccine, the nation's first department of human genetics, field trials to confirm the safety and efficacy of the polio vaccine, and the invention of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, also known as ECMO, a life support system that does the work of a person's heart and lungs.
"And now, our scientists have developed histotripsy, a fundamentally new way to treat cancerous tumors," Grasso said.
Histotripsy is uniquein that it acts almost like a knife with an invisible blade, liquifying targeted tumor tissue without an incision, without radiation or chemotherapy. Patients report little pain and few side effects, often returning to ordinary activity the day after the procedure.
Its potential is only beginning to be explored, said Zhen Xu, who co-invented histotripsy as a U-M graduate student in 2001 and now leads the Histotripsy Center. She has a doctorate in biomedical engineering and is a professor of radiology, neurosurgery and biomedical engineering at U-M.
"I hope and believe that 20 years later, when we look back at this moment, it's not just my pivotal moment, but it will be a pivotal moment for Michigan, for HistoSonics, for cancer patients worldwide," she said.
Her vision is to make the center a global hub for researchers to study and innovate, creating better and newer ways to use the technology to save lives. It'll also be a pipeline for education and training, where clinicians and scientists can collaborate and learn.
Eventually, she said, through partnerships between the university's medical school and biomedical engineering department, she'd like to launch a clinical fellowship and clinical residency program specifically for training the next generation of physicians in the use of histotripsy.
Already, researchers at the center are developing a more refined histotripsy device that they hope could be used to treat patients without the need for anesthesia. Another team is developing a special system that can transmit targeted ultrasound waves through bone, which opens up the possibility that histotripsy could be used for a host of neurological conditions — from brain tumors to blood clots and structural abnormalities that cause epilepsy. The device allows the sound waves to penetrate the skull without so much as a needle poke or incision and without causing any damage to surrounding bone or tissue in the process.
To date about 5,000 people have been treated with histotripsy, said Xu. Her aim is to grow that number in the next three to five years by hundreds of thousands more.
Among Michigan's first histotripsy patients was Elissa Robinson, a Detroit Free Press web editor with colon cancer that had metastasized to her liver.
The Free Press chronicled her treatment in 2025, when Robinson became among first five people in the state and among the first 15 nationally outside of clinical trials to undergo histotripsy.
Robinson's treatments were successful, but she ultimately wasn't able to overcome her stage 4 disease. Robinsondied in July at the age of 42.
Mike Blue, the president and CEO of HistoSonics, said the company's mission far exceeds the typical goals and ambitions most company leaders set for their teams.
"This is a responsibility," Blue said. "We have to move very quickly, not only translating and commercializing the [HistoSonics] ... platform for liver tumors, but for the next application, which will be kidney tumors, and the next application after that, which will be pancreatic tumors. And ... it's our responsibility to take their work and translate it and make sure that we are improving human health around the world forever."
Contact Kristen Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Subscribe to the Free Press.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: New U-M Histotripsy Center to target kidney, pancreatic, brain cancers
