News

Division of Medical and Biological Physics featured in the Providence Business News
An article published in the Providence Business News cited the laboratory of Professors Yana K. Reshetnyak and Oleg A. Andreev as an example of laboratories producing the breakthroughs required to elevate Rhode Island to a hub for biotechnology. The article pointed out that Rhode Island has historically been a small player in patent production, but that patent production has increased over the past few years, partly because of research conducted in the biophysics laboratory at the University of Rhode Island. Together with Professor Donald M. Engelman at Yale, Professors Reshetnyak and Andreev hold nine patents and have another eleven patent applications pending, primarily concerning the use of pHLIP for cancer detection and treatment.

UroToday and OncToday feature "Beyond the Abstract": a closer look at bladder cancer targeting by ICG pHLIP®
After featuring the abstract from an article about the application of pHLIP® to fluorescence-guided surgery, UroToday.com (and their sister site OncToday.com) published commentary from the authors of the article in a "Beyond the Abstract" segment. The commentary, concerning the 2016 PNAS article about the application of ICG pHLIP® to bladder cancer, briefly describes the benefits of using the pHLIP® peptide for targeting tumors and the progress made so far in fluorescence-guided surgery and PET imaging applications, and also outlines the steps that need to be taken in order to translate pHLIP® conjugates to clinics.

Application of pHLIP® for bladder cancer imaging featured by UroToday
UroToday, a Digital Science Press publication whose mission is to provide accurate urological and oncological content to healthcare providers, featured the abstract from a recently published article about the application of pHLIP® to the targeted imaging of bladder cancer tissue. The article, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes the successful use of ICG pHLIP® for ex vivo imaging and diagnosis of different types of high-grade urothelial carcinomas.

Professors Yana Reshetnyak and Oleg Andreev win research awards
Professor Yana Reshetnyak, co-head of the Division of Biological and Medical Physics at the University of Rhode Island, and Professor Oleg Andreev, chairman of the University of Rhode Island Department of Physics and co-head of the Biophysics Division, were awarded the 2016 Maitland P. Simmons Memorial Research Award by the University of Rhode Island. The Maitland P. Simmons Memorial Research Award was given to Professors Reshetnyak and Andreev for their "internationally acclaimed accomplishments in research and development of intellectual property leading to technology transfer and publications in peer-reviewed journals".

pHLIP® application in PET imaging featured on the cover of Bioconjugate Chemistry
A study of pHLIP-targeted PET imaging agents was chosen as the cover article of the September 21, 2016 edition of Bioconjugate Chemistry. The study, a collaboration between the Jason Lewis Lab at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Division of Biological and Medical Physics at the University of Rhode Island, showed greatly enhanced uptake of the pHLIP-PET agents over previously designed agents, and opens the possibility for the clinical translation of these radiopharmaceuticals.

Professor Oleg Andreev wins University of Rhode Island Excellence Award
Professor Oleg Andreev, chairman of the University of Rhode Island Department of Physics and co-head of the Division of Biological and Medical Physics, won a 2016 Excellence Award from the university. The Excellence Awards, which are awarded in order to recognize outstanding individuals at the University of Rhode Island, gave Professor Andreev the Advanced Career Faculty Research and Scholarship Excellence Award in Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Engineering.

Image of fluorescently labeled pHLIP® on cover of The Journal of Cancer Research
The cover of the March 15, 2016 edition of The Journal of Cancer Research features an image of breast cancer tissue targeted by fluorescently labeled pH (Low) Insertion Peptide (pHLIP). The image, taken as part of a study on the effects of the neutralization of tumor acidity on immunotherapy responses, shows the targeting of ZR-75-1 breast cancer tissue by Alexa546 dye conjugated to pHLIP. The study, conducted by collaborators at the Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Fl., found that "raising intratumoral pH through oral buffers therapy can improve responses to immunotherapy."

URI honors students, faculty and staff for excellence
The University of Rhode Island Research Foundation selected physics professors Oleg Andreev and Yana Reshetnyak as 2015 URI Foundation Excellence Award Winners, awarding the Foundation's Intellectual Property Excellence Award based on their research and subsequent patent of their pHLIP technology. The transmembrane pH (Low) Insertion Peptides (pHLIPs) deliver diagnostic, therapeutic, preventative and research agents to diseased cells in the human body by responding to physiological processes. Professors Andreev and Reshetnyak won the award for their achievements in 2014, most notably the formation of the company pHLIP, Inc., as well as two issued patents, two patent applications, and one invention disclosure.

Gold by special delivery intensifies cancer-killing radiation
Researchers from the University of Rhode Island and Brown University have demonstrated a promising new way to increase the effectiveness of radiation in killing cancer cells.

URI Medical Physics Group Wins Full Accreditation
The University of Rhode Island has offered a five-year medical physics program, run in partnership with Rhode Island Hospital, for the last several years. The specialized program has won accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Education Programs, a nationally recognized group, making it one of only two accredited medical physics programs in New England. URI's medical physics program offers classes and practical, hands-on experience using multiple, varied state-of-the-art cancer treatments and medical imaging equipment to prepare students for an expanding and increasingly complex, as well as rewarding, job market.

European Union Contest for Young Scientists
Ameeta and Aneeta Kumar won third prize in EUCYS 2014 Warsaw, a competition between 110 researchers, judged by an international jury. Ameeta and Aneeta presented their project, titled "pHLIP? Beacon of Hope", in which they investigated the effectiveness of pHLIP in cancer imaging using spheroids as tumor models. The researchers' work was conducted in the laboratory of Professor Ruth J. Muschel at the Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology & Biology, University of Oxford.

UK National Science + Engineering Competition 2014
Ameeta and Aneeta Kumar won the UK Young Scientists of the Year 2014 at the UK National Science + Engineering Competition 2014 for their work with pHLIP. This research was conducted with Dr. Thomas Tapmeier in the laboratory of Professor Ruth J. Muschel at the Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology & Biology, University of Oxford.

Nanogold® Reagents Target Cancers Using "Acid-Seeking" Peptide
NanoProbes showed off their Nanogold® product conjugated to pHLIP - an effective way to target the aciditic environment of tumors.

URI Research Excellence Award
Professor Yana K Reshetnyak was awarded an Advanced Career Faculty Research Excellence Award from the University of Rhode Island

Commencement 2013: Mother, son, daughter graduate together at URI
Lab member Chip Slaybaugh was awarded his undergraduate degree by his mother, who also received her doctorate degree the same weekend.

URI Celebrates Excellence
URI biophysicists Yana Reshetnyak, Oleg Andreev and Yale biophysicist Donald Engelman, received an intellectual property patent award from The URI Foundation and the URI Division of Research and Economic Development for "Selective Delivery of Molecules into Cells or Marking of Cells in Diseased Tissue Regions Using Environmentally Sensitive Transmembrane Peptide"… more.

Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF)
Holly Tran has been selected to win a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) from the Rhode Island IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (RI-INBRE) Program.

Era of Hope Highlights
The Department of Defense released a video of an interview that Dr. Oleg Andreev gave at a recent Department of Defense meeting.

Research Fellowship
Cynthia Prudence has been selected as a member of the 2011-2012 XSEDE Scholars Program (XSP). This includes attendance at SC11: Supercoming Conference in Seattle, WA as well other activities in the XSEDE research community.

Summer Research Fellowship
Mak Thakur has been accepted to Emory University's Summer Institute in Biostatistics. Activities include graduate school advice, biostatistics courses, introduction to public health research, and a trip to the CDC.

Research Media LTD published an article on the the pHLIP research conducted by Dr. Reshetnyak, Dr. Andreev and Dr. Engelamn in Issue #2 of Healthcare, International Innovations.

Travel Fellowship
The FASEB Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) Program has awarded Cynthia Prudence a travel grant to attend the Great Lakes Bioinformatics Conference (GLBIO2011) in Athens, Ohio.

Travel Fellowship
The Empowering Leadership Alliance has awarded Cynthia Prudence a travel grant to attend the ELA/Tapia Conference in San Francisco this April.

Best Poster Award
Jennifer Daniels’ poster, Membrane Fusion Mediated by pH-Low-Insertion-Peptide (pHLIP), was selected as one of the ten best at the 3rd Annual Northeast Undergraduate Research and Development Symposium.

Research and Innovation at URI
URI biophysicists Yana Reshetnyak and Oleg Andreev have discovered a technology that can detect cancerous tumors… (page 18)more

URI names 10 to watch in 2010
Professors collaborating from the University of Rhode Island and Yale University are discovering new ways to detect and treat cancer. Yana Reshetnyak and Oleg Andreev from URI's physics department, along with Donald Engleman from Yale's department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry….more

URI Graduate Stundent Grants
Dayanjali D Wijesinghe was awarded a grant by the University of Rhode Island to help fund her dissertation research.