HHMI Mentors

If interested in contacting any of the programs below for mentorship, please contact Molly Astudillo at mastudillo@sirweb.org

Bioengineering Initiative in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children's National Medical Center

The Bioengineering Initiative in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children's National Medical Center focuses on technology development for minimally invasive interventions. The laboratory's research areas include pre-procedure planning, intra-procedure guidance, and post-procedure assessment. Current topics of interest include surgical planning for craniosynostosis and hydronephrosis, image-guided navigation for orthopaedics, robotic assistance for endoscopic procedures, surgical skill evaluation, and nanotechnology for novel molecular imaging methods. The laboratory is co-directed by Kevin Cleary, PhD, and Raymond Sze, MD and includes engineers, computer scientists, surgeons, and radiologists.

Lead: Kevin Cleary, PhD

Johns Hopkins University

World-renowned for its medical research and advances, the Johns Hopkins University includes a variety of research centers and CORE facilities. Designed to encourage cutting-edge research in the areas of medicine, genetics, technology and others, these facilities enable our researchers to better medical treatments for a wide variety of health concerns.

The Interventional Radiology Research Animal Laboratory: The Interventional Radiology Research Laboratory occupies 5,000 square feet of space in the Traylor and adjoining Ross Research Buildings. The facility contains state-of-the-art single plane fluoroscopic, angiographic, and cineradiographic x-ray suites, x-ray c-arm cone beam CT (CBCT), animal clinic/exam room, animal surgical rooms, and an interventional radiology device fabrication laboratory. The two modern angiographic suites designed specifically for animal research provide single plane fluoroscopy with normal and high speed (90 frames/sec), digital subtraction angiography, rotational angiography and single film recording. The facility is equipped with a multiple angulation angiocardiographic table to facilitate procedures. Support equipment includes computerized physiological monitoring and recording systems, dual channel electromagnetic and ultrasonic blood flow meters, ventilators, infusion pumps, a gas anesthesia unit, defibrillator and crash cart, contrast media injectors, three ultrasound units with an array of transducers, ample laboratory counter space and general laboratory equipment.

Our research focuses on 3 major areas: Discovery and development of new cancer therapeutics designed to target the up-regulated tumor metabolism pathway; Study, assessment and development (both clinically and pre-clinically) of new drug delivery platforms including nanoparticles and liposomes; and finally development and validation of various imaging protocols to assess tumor response after loco-regional therapy for cancer.

Lead: Jeff Geschwind, MD, FSIR

Interventional Oncology Laboratory at Northwestern

The Interventional Oncology Laboratory, co-directed by Andrew Larson and Reed Omary specializes in the pre-clinical development and clinical translation of image-guided cancer therapies. Specific research interests include the development of IO therapies for liver and pancreatic cancer along with associated imaging techniques for treatment planning and follow-up monitoring of therapy response. Current multi-disciplinary research efforts include the development and validation of innovative transcatheter approaches for targeted drug and brachytherapy delivery (drug eluting microspheres, nanotechnology, radioembolization microspheres), tissue ablation technology (photothermal and irreversible electroporation approaches), and targeted delivery of cellular and peptide-based immunotherapy.

Lead: Andrew Larson, PhD

Vascular and Interventional Translational Lab at Mayo Clinic

The Vascular and Interventional Translational Lab at Mayo Clinic is interested in the developing translational therapies to treat venous stenosis formation associated with hemodialysis graft failure and developing nano imaging and nano drug delivery for acute kidney injury. Consisting of an 800 square foot laboratory is complete with a cell culture room and a microsurgical room with state of the art molecular biology capabilities.  There are two technicians and three post doctoral fellows who work in the laboratory.

Lead: Sanjay Misra, MD, FSIR