meet the team

Dr. Lorico did his post-doc at Yale University, where he investigated the biological function(s) of the MRP1 (multidrug resistance protein 1) gene by generating and characterizing MRP1 knockout mice and cell lines. After 8 years at Yale, he became senior scientist at the Norwegian Cancer Center in Oslo, where he designed new strategies for gene therapy of hereditary diseases. Back to USA, he has been working for the past 10+ years on cell-to-cell communication in the tumor microenvironment, particularly  mediated by extracellular vesicles. The discovery from his lab of a novel nuclear transport pathway for extracellular vesicles and viruses and the synthesis of inhibitors of this pathway have resulted in new therapeutic strategies for metastatic cancer and viral diseases, including AIDS.

Google Scholar Profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NOJgXU0AAAAJ&hl=en

Dr. Santos began his scientific career at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, MS. Therein, his dissertation was focused on elucidating the function of the innate immune system in patients with high numbers of circulating tumor cells. He specifically targeted natural killer cells and developed assays to determine their cytotoxic activity by flow cytometry. After completing his PhD, Dr. Santos began his postdoctoral fellowship at Roseman University in Las Vegas, NV where he identified the fate of extracellular vesicles upon entering the target cells. His projects have focused on characterizing the proteins involved in transporting extracellular vesicle cargo into the nucleus of cells and developing techniques to visualize these vesicles in fixed and live samples by confocal microscopy. He has also studied the effects of extracellular vesicle uptake on gene expression levels. It is Dr. Santos's hope to establish extracellular vesicles as potential biomarkers in cancer and other diseases.

lab personnel

Medical Student ResearcherS