Areas of Interest
a. Use of gold nanoparticles for tumor imaging, vascular
imaging and as a radiation enhancer for tumor therapy.
b. Development of novel brain tumor therapies for
experimental, advanced, imminently lethal intracerebral
malignant gliomas and melanomas in rats and mice using a
combination of radiation therapy and immunotherapy.
Lab Rotation Projects
Our laboratory is involved in a number of research projects
in the fields of cancer, cancer immunotherapy, cancer therapy,
tumor and vascular imaging, as can be seen by the following
publications. Please contact the Smilowitz Lab for specific
projects.
1. Gold Enhanced Radiation Therapy & Vascular and Tumor
Imaging:
We are working collaboratively with a company on Long Island
that has developed novel preparations of gold nano-particles.
These non-toxic particles can be injected iv at very high doses
and small particles are excreted by the kidney. We are working
on several projects to develop novel therapies and diagnostic
tests that can be performed with these agents:
• Gold Enhanced Radiation Therapy: We have shown that
gold nanoparticles can greatly increase the radiation dose a
tumor receives and are therefore useful as radiation enhancers.
We are currently working on breast cancer, squamous cell
carcinoma and glioma models.
• Gold Enhanced Imaging: We are working on several
imaging projects including the development of a virtual
colonoscopy, breast cancer imaging, gold-based angiography, and
kidney imaging.
2. Experimental Therapeutics of Brain Tumors:
We introduce glioma or melanoma cells into rat or mouse brains
and allow the tumors to occupy about 2% of the brain (analogous
to human brain tumors at the time of diagnosis) before therapy
is started. We first treat with a form of radiation therapy
followed by a form of experimental immunotherapy under
development. A variety of immunological assays are performed in
addition to survival studies.
Publications
Selected Publications
Hainfeld, J.F., O’Connor, M.J., Dilmanian, F.A., Slatkin, D.N.,
Adams, D.J., Smilowitz, H.M. 2011. MicroCT Enables
Microlocalization and Quantification of Her-2-Targeted Gold
Nanoparticles Within Tumor Regions. British Journal of
Radiology, Epub Ahead of Print.
Hainfeld, J.F., O’Connor, M.J., Lin, P.P., Smilowitz, H.M. 2010
Cancer Therapy with wIRA and Gold Nanoparticles. Water-Filtered
Infrared-A Radiation: From Basic Principles to Clinical
Applications.
Stoklasek, T., Colpitts, SL, Smilowitz, H.M. and Lefrancois, L
2010. MHC Class I and TCR Avidity Control the CD8 T Cell
Response to IL15/IL15Ralpha Complex J. Immunol. 185: 6857-6865.
Hainfeld, J.F., Dilmanian, F.A., Zhong Z., Slatkin, D.N.,
Smilowitz, H.M. 2010 Gold Nanoparticles Enhance Radiation
Therapy of a Squamous Cell Carcinoma Growing in Mice. Physics in
Medicine and Biology, 55: 1-15
Hainfeld, J.F., Slatkin, D.N., Dilmanian, F.A., Smilowitz, H.M.
2008. Radiotherapy Enhancement with Gold Nanoparticles. J.
Pharmacy and Pharmacology. 60: 977-985. Volume 60 #8 is a
Special Issue: Radiation Biology – Can New Concepts Achieve
Better Treatment Outcomes?
Smilowitz, H.M., Weissenberger, J.,O'Neill, R.,Brown, J., Weis ,
J. and Laissue, J.A. 2007. Orthotopic Transplantation of v-src
Expressing Glioma Cell Lines into Immunocompetent Mice:
Establishment of a New Transplantable in vivo Model for
Malignant Gliomas. J. Neurosurgery 106: 1-8.
Smilowitz, H.M., T. Graham, M. Ji, G. Tellides, M. Oaks, J.F.
Hainfeld, D.N. Slatkin. 2007. The combination of x- ray -
mediated radiosurgery and immunoprophylaxis for advanced
intracerebral F98 gliomas in rats: efficacy of Treg depletion
and uric acid. Centenial meeting of the American Association for
Cancer Research April 14-18, 2007, Los Angeles, California.
Hainfeld, J.F., D.N. Slatkin, T. Focella, H.M. Smilowitz. 2006.
Gold Nanoparticles as X-Ray contrast Agents. British Journal of
Radiology. 79: 248-253.
Smilowitz, H.M., D.N. Slatkin, N. Lubimova, H. Blattman, E.
Brauer-Krisch, A. Bravin, M. Di Michiel, J. Stepanek, G. Le Duc,
J.-O. Gebbers, J.A. Laissue. 2006. Synergy of Gene-Mediated
Immunoprophylaxis and Microbeam Radiation Therapy (MRT) for
Advanced Intracerebral Rat 9L Gliosarcomas. J. Neuro-Oncology
78:135-143.
Hainfeld, J.F., D.N. Slatkin, H.M. Smilowitz. 2004, Gold
Nanoparticles Greatly Enhance X-ray Cancer Therapy in Mice.
Physics in Medicine and Biology 49: N309.
Smilowitz, H.M., Coderre, J.A., Nawrocky, M.M., Pinkerton,
A., Tu, W., Slatkin, D.N. 2002. The Combination of
X-Ray-Mediated Radiosurgery and Gene Mediated Immunoprophylaxis
for an Advanced Intracerebral Gliosaracoma in Rats. J.
NeuroOncology 57: 9-18.
 View more publications, see
Pubmed listing.
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