Rheal Towner, PhD
- Research Program: Geroscience
- Position: Associate Member, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF)
Biography
"I have extensive experience (over 31 years with over 170 refereed publications) in the use of MR techniques to assess pathophysiological processes in animal models for cancer (mainly focusing on gliomas over the past 12 years), tissue injury, inflammation, oxidative stress, obesity, diabetes, cardiac, bladder disorders, and neurological changes associated with aging. I have used and assessed various orthotopic, xenograft and transgenic models for tumor development in the past 19 years, and have incorporated MR imaging and spectroscopy methods to detect morphological, biophysical (diffusion (as proposed in this application) and perfusion), functional and metabolic alterations associated with tumor growth, neurological diseases, particularly those associated with neuroinflammation, and the assessment of therapeutic responses.
Over the past decade, my research group and I have developed and synthesized various molecular MRI probes that target tumor vascularity (VEGFR2), tumor invasion (c-Met), inflammation (iNOS), ELTD1, and macromolecular free radicals, which can be applied to various disease models (e.g. diabetes, cancer, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, and sepsis), as well as aging. We have also developed and assessed anti-cancer therapeutic agents, one of which, OKN-007, is currently an investigational drug undergoing clinical assessment in recurrent glioblastomas (GBM) in a multi-institutional phase II trial in combination with temozolomide (TMZ); and the other an antibody therapy against an angiogenesis biomarker, ELTD1, which we have found recently is effective against all major aspects of tumorigenesis.
I have mentored 16 Ph.D. students, 4 M.Sc. students, 8 Post-Doctoral Fellows, 3 clinical fellows, a research trainee, 27 summer students, and 17 post-graduate rotation students, over the past 23 years. I am currently mentoring 2 Ph.D. students in my group."
Publications
- Graduate School
-
University of Queensland
Brisbane, QLD -
University of Guelph
Guelph, ON
- Undergraduate School
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University of Guelph
Guelph, ON
- Brain Aging
- Neuroinflammation
- Brain Cancers
- Free Radical Imaging
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging
- Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
- ELTD1 as a biomarker for multiple sclerosis: Pre-clinical molecular-targeted studies in a mouse experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis model 2021
- Optimized monoclonal antibody treatment against ELTD1 for GBM in a G55 xenograft mouse model 2020
- Assessment of a scFv antibody fragment against ELTD1 in a G55 glioblastoma xenograft model 2020
- OKlahoma Nitrone-007: Novel Treatment for Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma 2020
- Molecular changes associated with spinal cord aging 2020
- Anti-inflammatory agent, OKN-007, reverses long-term neuroinflammatory responses in a rat encephalopathy model as assessed by multi-parametric MRI: implications for aging-associated neuroinflammation 2019
- OKN-007 increases temozolomide (TMZ) sensitivity and suppresses TMZ-resistant glioblastoma (GBM) tumor growth 2019
- Association of decreased levels of lipopolysaccharide-binding protein with OKN-007–induced regression of tumor growth in an F98 rat glioma model 2019
- Assessing long-term neuroinflammatory responses to encephalopathy using MRI approaches in a rat endotoxemia model 2018
- In vivo and in situ detection of macromolecular free radicals using immuno-spin trapping and molecular MRI 2018