People Profiles
Dr. Kolios is a Professor in the Department of Physics and the Associate Dean of Science in Research and Graduate Studies. In his research, he uses ultrasound and photoacoustics to detect the health of cells in the body. Dr. Kolios’ medical physics lab applies this research to detect responses to chemotherapy in cancer patients. He supervises several graduate students at Ryerson and his work has undergone clinical trials at Sunnybrook Hospital. We conducted an interview with him to find out more about him and his research.
What does your lab research?
A: My lab does research in biomedical applications of ultrasound and photoacoustics. Photoacoustics is making ultrasound by using light. The analogy I give to people is that of lightning and thunder. If you see lightning, after a while you see thunder. That’s because the atmosphere is heated when the lightning goes through which results in the sound that you hear. Since sound travels at approximately 340 m/s for every 3 seconds you wait, that sound wave is traveling 1km. That’s why you know that if you see lightning and then hear thunder after 3 seconds, the lightning bolt is 1 km away. If it’s 0 seconds, whoops! You’re toast. The sound that the cells give off gives you information about where the cells normal the same way that the thunder gives you information about when you should hear lightning.
Which kind of biomedical applications? I have 2 major projects. One is to see how cells scatter sound differently when they are dying (undergoing a process called apoptosis). The idea is to try to use ultrasound as a means to assess whether tissues are responding to some kind of therapy. For example, in cancer therapy, if cancer cells are responding to the drug and undergoing apoptosis, they would be scattering sound differently than normal cells.
For the other project, again using cancer therapy as an example, there are many treatments that initially target blood vessels. Now, it turns out that if I shine a laser light on you, the entity in your skin other than melanin that absorbs most of the light are your red blood cells. In this project we use photoacoustics. Here, photoacoustic signals are primarily generated by blood vessels. If you have a cancer treatment of some sort that influences the blood vessels, perhaps killing them or making them dysfunctional, then we are able to detect it using this method of photoacoustics.
What is the coolest/most exciting part of your research that you want people to know about?
A: Everything! I’m just kidding. The fact that students participate in it. I find that immensely satisfying. Once you reach a certain level in research, you barely enter the lab. All you do is write grants, write papers, and guide the research process. So the people that are actually in the lab doing the research are students, and I am very proud of their accomplishments. My interaction with my students and my staff. I really love to interact with them and talk about the data and the interpretation of it, new ideas, how to implement those ideas, the consequences of those ideas, etc. So, obviously I’m excited about the research per say, but I think the coolest part is that kind of intellectual interaction with the students and staff and trying to solve the stream of never-ending problems.
What do you love most about the work that you do?
A: I love that people pay me to discover new things that were not known before. Exploring the unknown. To boldly go where no person has gone before. So it’s the discovery process that inspires me the most. But it’s not just the discovery, it’s the rigour that has to go into making a discovery: knowledge. So it’s one thing to discover that an apple falls from a tree. Everybody knows that, but what is the underlying physical mechanism? Why does the apple go down and not up? Why doesn’t it go in circles when it falls?
What was the deciding factor that motivated you to enter this field of research?
A: I attribute that to two things. One is a summer student opportunity I had at Chalk River Laboratories in Chalk River, Ontario. They have a summer student program which I joined once and that initially sparked my interest but I still wasn’t sure. The second is my fourth year thesis project which I did with my supervisor, which really got me into it because I could start to see that I could generate my own knowledge as opposed to just reading a book and doing preset questions that you know there is an answer to. Being able to answer things that don’t currently have an answer, and working with my supervisor and trying to figure these things out. I got my paper out of it as an undergraduate which was a big accomplishment, even more so back then.
I always found the application of physics to biology because it combined two elements: my natural love for the rigour of mathematics as applied to physical phenomenon, and interacting with people which brings in the biomedical application where you think about how to use this knowledge, perhaps in making radiation therapy machines.
What do you hope to achieve from this research experience?
A: Ultimately, at least in the field that I’m in, it’s about impact on patients. All of these technologies I’m developing are cool. They have lasers, they have these gizmos, but ultimately the application, either imaging or therapy, is what excites me a lot. I want to see this helping people.
Do you have any advice or words of wisdom for people who are thinking about getting involved in research?
A: Find something you love. Show grit. Research is a very difficult thing to do for a very long time while being successful and enjoying it because it involves lots of ups and downs. You know that if you study for your biology exam, there is probably a direct correlation between how much you study and the mark you’re going to get. With research, you could be going blind into an alley for a very long time and it becomes tough. You have to really love it because there is a lot of failure. You have to love the discovery and that entire process of trying to solve a puzzle for which you don’t even know there is a solution to.
What do you do for fun outside of work? Any cool hobbies?
A: I used to play a lot of squash when I was younger - a high intensity activity to blow off steam. I try to combine activities I normally don’t enjoy, like running, food shopping, and waiting, with things I do enjoy, like listening to audio-books. That’s helped me a lot because it’s difficult to find time to do the things that I enjoy with so many research projects and so many students.
