Collaborators

Heiko Enderling, PhD

Heiko is an Associate Member at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute and an Associate Professor of Oncologic Sciences at the University of South Florida. He presently serves as Director for Education and Outreach (Physical Sciences in Oncology Center) at the Moffitt Center.

Heiko is a leader in the development of quantitative oncology to personalize therapy by investigating tumor growth, tumor evolutionary dynamics and tumor–immune biology in response to therapy. The Quantitative Personalized Oncology Lab innovates new concepts for precision medicine and novel combination therapies by parameterizing mathematical and computational models using preclinical and clinical data in close collaboration with experimentalists and clinicians. His research has led to new approaches that harness patient-specific dynamics as biomarkers for treatment response to inform adaptive and personalized therapies that combat mechanisms of treatment escape and that have potential to extend life while using radiation and pharmaceuticals more efficiently.

We are investigating new approaches to precision photomedicine that stimulate the immune system, in synergy with immunotherapy, in collaboration with the Quantitative Personalized Oncology Lab.

Robert A. Gatenby, MD

Bob is the Chair of Radiology at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute where he spearheaded the formation of a new program titled Integrative Mathematical Oncology (IMO) and where he also co-directs the Cancer Biology and Evolution program. The IMO brings to the Cancer Center a cadre of applied mathematicians to collaborate with tumor biologists and clinical oncologists. The goal is to use the mathematics developed for other nonlinear dynamical systems to examine the physiology of a tumor incorporating factors such as phenotypic evolution, intracellular communication pathways and interactions with microenvironmental factors including therapies. The program fosters continuous interaction between mathematicians and experimentalists as they form explicit comprehensive theoretical models to serve as a framework for understanding cancer’s development, progression and treatment. The IMO, led by Dr. Gatenby, represents an experiment in rethinking paradigms in medical research. A key purpose of the IMO is to provide the quantitative methods that will allow experimentalists and clinicians to frame their hypotheses, simulate their experimental design in-silico, and identify first principles that govern cancer growth and treatment. 

Notably, Bob's contributions to the conception and development of "adaptive therapy" were recently honored in a Wired article in response to the first encouraging clinical results that this approach reduces drug exposure toxicity while attaining a remarkable gain in halting the progression of metastatic disease (Nature Comm 2017)—with anticipated gains in long-term overall patient survival presently under study. 

We are investigating new approaches to precision photomedicine that stimulate the immune system, in synergy with immunotherapy, in collaboration with Bob, Heiko (above) and the IMO.

Hiroaki Wakimoto, MD, PhD

We are collaborating with Hiroaki and his team at the Brain Tumor Stem Cell Lab (Massachusetts General Hospital) to develop imaging methods for visualizing the glioblastoma stem cell (GSC) tumor microenvironment and to guide photomedicine of drug-resistant tumors. This work is being performed using patient-derived GSC models developed by the Wakimoto group that recapitulate patient-specific disease phenotypes.

Robert S. Knox, PhD

Bob is a Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at the University of Rochester in New York. He was chair of the Department (1969–1973) and Associate Dean for Special Programs in the College (1982–1987). He is the author of the book Theory of Excitons and in 1994 was a co-recipient of the Biological Physics Prize of the American Physical Society in connection with his research on photosynthesis. Although Bob is well-known for these and related seminal contributions listed on his personal website, one of his most cited papers regards photomedicine (photodynamic oxygen consumption)!

We try not to bother Bob with our problems while he enjoys retirement, however, he is always enthused to talk science and contributes insights regarding the intricacies of photophysics, FRET and optical spectroscopy. His critical feedback and encouragement has proven helpful when we contemplate some of our more bold and risky ideas to develop new microscopy approaches.