Radiobiology and Imaging Program

PROJECT SUMMARY – Radiobiology and Imaging Program (RBI) The Radiobiology and Imaging Program (RBI) seeks to advance the understanding of the interaction of ionizing and non-ionizing radiation with cancer and normal tissues. RBI addresses the cancer burden within our catchment area through collaboration with our Community Outreach and Engagement (COE). Scientific Aims are to: 1) Develop and characterize agents to improve cancer therapy with radiation; 2) Investigate radiobiological or imaging methods of altering or interrogating the immune environment to improve therapeutic response; 3) Gain a deeper understanding of the tumor microenvironment (TME) and metabolism with the aim to leverage this understanding to improve therapeutic response; 4) Develop novel imaging to optimally guide cancer care; and 5) Understand the biological effects of protons to optimize their clinical use and determine which patients will benefit most from proton beam therapy. The Program is led by Amit Maity, MD, PhD, Professor and Executive Vice-Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology, and Daniel Pryma, MD, Associate Professor of Radiology and Chief of the Division of Nuclear Medicine. Drs. Maity and Pryma are NCI-funded researchers who bring their scientific vision to this Program, which is focused on basic and translational research and the development of investigator-initiated trials. Since the last renewal, the Program Leaders recruited new junior and senior scientists, enhanced collaborative peer-reviewed funding, and more than doubled accruals to interventional clinical trials, especially investigator-initiated trials (which constitute 91.6% of interventional accruals). Drs. Maity and Pryma expanded the Program's focus on imaging modalities and theranostics and further enhanced the integration and interplay between radiobiology and imaging in RBI. A major development has been the substantial expansion of both translational and clinical studies of proton therapy. RBI has critical interactions with other ACC Programs including Tumor Biology, Immunobiology, Cancer Therapeutics, Breast Cancer, Cancer Control, Tobacco and Environmental Carcinogenesis, and Pediatric Oncology. The 44 Program members represent seven departments from four schools at Penn. RBI members have $12M in research grant funding (annual direct costs), of which $10.9M is peer-reviewed and $7M is NCI-funded. There were 654 cancer-related publications authored by Program members during the project period. Of these, 27% are intra-Programmatic, 35% are inter-Programmatic and 64% are multi- institutional. RBI has 36 R01-equivalents. Program members accrued 1,476 subjects to interventional trials, and 3,611 subjects to non-interventional trials.