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An NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Research
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Dr. Jacobs’ research interests focus on improving the access, delivery, and quality of care, particularly for traditionally underserved populations. He has over 100 publications, including studies in high-impact journals such as JAMA, Health Affairs, and Cancer. He is the principal investigator on an R37 MERIT award from the National Cancer Institute and has received grant support from several other agencies, including the National Institute on Aging, the American Cancer Society, and the Shadyside Hospital Foundation. He is the Research Chief of the Urology Health Services Research Division. Clinically, Dr. Jacobs specializes in urologic oncology, including bladder, kidney, prostate, testis, and penile cancer.
Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), or HHV-8, is a member of the human herpesvirus family whose DNA sequences have been found in samples of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS). A number of projects in our laboratory are focused on the prevalence of KSHV infection in various cohorts and populations. We are particularly interested in the serological association of KSHV with human prostate cancer and are investigating at a molecular level, potential roles for KSHV in progression and maintenance of this cancer. We are also exploring the events during primary KSHV infection, including interactions between the virus and cell membrane, modulation of host gene synthesis, and establishment of viral infection. My lab has also been involved for several years in biobehavioral medicine. Specifically, we are interested in the role of stress and stress hormones in disease pathogenesis. Our current studies involve how stress hormones affect individual cells, the types of damage they may inflict on these cells and the outcomes of these interactions.
The research in my laboratory focuses on using T cell antigen discovery techniques to understand and engineer immunity. One of the areas we are interested in is uncovering the targets of antitumor T cell responses and using this knowledge to engineer novel therapies.
Dr. Johnston has over two decades of drug discovery experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and academic sectors. Since joining the University of Pittsburgh Department of Pharmacology & Chemical Biology in 2005 to help design and build the infrastructure for a high-throughput drug discovery screening center at the Drug Discovery Institute, Dr. Johnston has led 21 screening campaigns, and reconfigured the NCI 60 cell line assays for cancer drug combination screening. In 2011, Dr. Johnston joined the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the School of Pharmacy to establish chemical biology laboratories, where he has continued to conduct his research in high-throughput and high-content screening (HTS/HCS) assay development and implementation, and to establish drug discovery collaborations throughout the scientific community. His research has focused on pursuing chemical biology approaches to identify small molecules with the potential to be developed into new therapies for prostate cancer, melanoma and head and neck cancer.
I am PhD investigator and medical physicist with expertise in radiopharmaceutical dosimetry and modelling as well as PET- and SPECT-imaged based dosimetry. During my PhD studies, I developed small scale/micro dosimetry models for the thyroid gland to calculate the radiation absorbed doses when treated or exposed to α-particle or Auger-electron emitting radiohalogens (e.g., Astatine and Iodine isotopes). My post-doctoral work and research as a faculty at Johns Hopkins University focused on pre-clinical and clinical projects regarding image quantification and dosimetry of radiopharmaceutical therapy and diagnostics. I have worked extensively on pre-clinical studies using α-particle emitting radiopharmaceuticals for treatment against metastatic breast, prostate and melanoma cancers. This includes ex vivo imaging and quantification of organs/tissues of interest with the iQID-camera system, helping to determine the microscale distribution and activity concentrations of the α-particle emitting radiopharmaceutical within normal organs/tissues and tumors. I incorporate these iQID-camera images with dosimetric models to more accurately calculate and translate estimated radiation absorbed doses from pre-clinical models to the clinic. My research focuses are to develop improved analysis for dosimetry of targeted radiotherapeutics by incorporating and developing non-invasive imaging techniques (i.e. PET- and SPECT-imaging), microscale dosimetry models based on iQID-cameraimages, and more extensive evaluation of short and long-term toxicity of targeted α-particle therapy (TAT), particularly those with complex decay pathways.
