Initiatives explored by the Evans Center

Overview:

The goal of the Evans Center is to enhance interdisciplinary research via ARCs and Research Forums, which could also aid in developing new NIH-funded Programs and Research Centers.


Nanomedicine Initiative funded in June 2010:

A collaboration between the Nanoscience Center (at the time, under the direction of Dr. Bennet Goldberg), renamed in 2015 BU Nanotechnology Innovation Center and is under the direction of Dr. Mark Grinstaff, the Cancer Center, now under the direction of Dr. Avrum Spira (at the time, under the direction of Dr. Douglas Faller), and the Evans Center (directed by Dr. Katya Ravid)

Overall program goals: To address these challenges, and train a new cadre of scientists and engineers and medical researchers capable of working across disciplines, we propose a Boston University cross-disciplinary training
program in nanotechnology for cancer (XTNC). This is built around our new Nanomedicine Initiative which has spawned more than 10 new collaborations between nanotechnologists and medical researchers. The majority of these pilot programs are in the area of cancer. Armed with a new support structure for co-mentored research experiences, we have also created a new
cross-disciplinary course, Introduction to Nanomedicine, approved on the medical campus, and co-taught by program faculty from both the physical and life sciences and engineering and medical researchers. Together with hands-on workshops, detailed mentoring plans, strong recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities, a unique urban outreach program, we believe pre-doctoral and post-doctoral trainees will become well educated, simultaneously adept and versatile and well prepared to make an impact in the future of cancer nanotechnology.


Initiative explored in February 2010:

Recovery Act Limited Competition: NIH Director’s Opportunity for Research in Five Thematic Areas (RC4): Reinvigorating the Biomedical Research Community

Title: Integrating Nanoscale Life and Physical Science Research with Medicine
Program Directors: Drs. Katya Ravid and Bennett B Goldberg
Overall program goals: This proposal will allow us to develop and sustain a novel infrastructure that promotes the creation of Affinity Research Collaboratives¹ (ARCs), yielding interdisciplinary research groups that are bound by common interest in a biomedical problem, using various technologies, towards the goal of establishing a Nanomedicine Center/Program.  The 10 nanomedicine projects we have identified thus far have great significance, with new techniques for measuring biomarkers of disease, new imaging modalities that also target tumors, new high speed measurements of viral DNA, and wide array of novel research with critical significance to advance detection, diagnosis and treatment of human disease.


Initiative explored in May 2009:

In vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Centers (ICMICs) (P50)

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-09-157.html

Purpose as described by NIH:

The Cancer Imaging Program, and the Division of Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment, at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), invites new or renewal (competing) applications for P50 Research Center Grants for In vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Centers (ICMICs). The program will fund the 5-year P50 ICMIC grants to support interdisciplinary scientific teams conducting cutting-edge cancer molecular imaging research. ICMIC funding is designed to: (1) support innovative cancer molecular imaging research projects; (2) support unique core facilities; (3) enable the awardees to initiate pilot research in new promising directions; and (4) provide interdisciplinary career development opportunities for investigators new to the field of molecular cancer imaging.

Initial Steering Committee formed by the Evans Center (July 2009): Drs. Douglas Faller, Jerome Mertz, Carol Rosenberg, David Seldin, Tkacz Jaroslaw, and Katya Ravid

The presently funded 7 ICMICs are found on the URL:
https://imaging.cancer.gov/programs_resources/specialized_initiatives/ICMICp50.htm

Initial Meetings:

07.14.09: 12-2 pm, Wilkins Board Room: Drs. Jerome Mertz, Amit Meller, Tyrone Porter, Shyamsunder Erramilli, Selim Unlu and Bjoern Reinhard (from CR campus) presented an array of Imaging Technologies
10.21.09; 9-10 am, W-502: Radiology and Cancer, led by Dr. Tkacz Jaroslaw
11.18.09; 9-10 am, W-502: Animal Imaging and Cancer, led by Drs. David Seldin, Louis Gerstenfeld and others
12.16.09; 9-10 am, W-502: Cellular Imaging and Cancer, led by Dr. Orian Shirihai

Attachments of slides and Texts on Technologies and Applications to Cancer Presented During Meetings:

[Please click below]
Biomicroscopy Lab
Label Free Sensors
Active Plasmonic Nanostructures in Biosensing and Imaging
New techniques in optical microscopy
Introduction to Nanomedicine: Applications in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer

Initiating Participants, 2009:

Click to download list of faculty name, department, research interest and contact information