NEW FACULTY RECRUITMENT IMAGE-GUIDED CANCER THERAPEUTICS

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) views translational research, nanotechnology, and development of biomedical and radiologic imaging as part of its vision and mission. Via the recruitment of a tenure-track Assistant Professor, we seek to investigate "Image-Guided Cancer Therapeutics" by exploiting the nanoscale control in fabricating nanoparticles to design multifunctional agents that facilitate diagnosing, treating and monitoring of cancer therapies. Today's cancer therapeutics take a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to dosage and delivery of drugs, and new improved therapeutic strategies have to be explored that incorporate the technological pieces of a puzzle that can lead to customized, patient-specific therapeutic strategies. Specifically, we propose to recruit a tenure track faculty member to help unite the full spectrum of engineering, imaging and cancer expertise at CWRU. Such a program will exploit the existing strengths of the drug delivery, nanotechnology and imaging components of the BME Department, Case Center for Imaging Research, and the superb medical and basic research occurring at the School of Medicine, and the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center to develop an extremely collaborative program aimed at clinical translation and development of novel imaging tools as enablers of improved therapies in a patient-specific manner via non-invasive interrogation of tumor vasculature status. To achieve these goals, the program will utilize engineering approaches including in silico, in vitro and in vivo studies. Importantly, these tools can serve as platform technologies for other diseases where knowledge of vasculature status and integrity is of great importance (e.g. atherosclerosis, ischemia). The goal of the proposed program is to develop translational and clinically-relevant imaging technologies that non-invasively can detect and monitor (1) cancer status and (2) predict and monitor the effects of anticancer drugs in a patient-specific manner. This program will further contribute to the fast growing nanotech, cancer therapy and imaging, and medical industries of Ohio. Besides the significant impact on healthcare, this program can potentially facilitate job creation and long-term economic impacts for Ohio. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE (provided by applicant): Today's cancer therapeutics take a 'one-size-fits-all' approach, and new improved, customizable therapies have to be explored. Via the recruitment of an Assistant Professor, this program aims to integrate nanotechnology with clinically-relevant imaging to provide prognostic and monitoring tools of treatments in a patient-specific manner that enables oncologists to better differentially select therapeutic regimens.