EPSCoR Research Fellows: NSF: Engineering a Translational SERS Immunophenotyping and Multimodal Analytics Framework for Liquid-Biopsy Based Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer

This Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) EPSCoR Research Fellows project provides a fellowship to an Assistant professor and training for a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oklahoma. This work is conducted in collaboration with Dr. Anil Sood at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Through the fellowship, the PI will establish a minimally invasive, blood-based testing approach for early cancer detection of ovarian cancer. The project will combine advanced sensing technologies, artificial intelligence, and cancer research to identify subtle changes in the blood that may signal the earliest stages of disease. The fellowship will establish new laboratory and computational tools at the University of Oklahoma to better understand how ovarian cancer develops and how the body's immune system responds during early disease. These efforts will strengthen Oklahoma's research capacity, help train the next generation of scientists and healthcare innovators, expand collaborations, and advance the long-term goal of earlier ovarian cancer detection and improved patient outcomes. This project will establish a multimodal, quantitatively integrated platform to identify early signatures of ovarian tumorigenesis. As its central engineering innovation, the platform integrates surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy-based high-resolution sensing, predictive modeling, and mechanistic investigation to enable capabilities not currently achievable with existing technologies. The fellowship will provide intensive mentorship for the PI and a postdoctoral research associate in longitudinal experimental design, high-dimensional data analysis, and advanced analytics. These skills and technologies will be transferred to the University of Oklahoma, expanding research capacity in organotypic tumor modeling, multimodal sensing, and computational data integration. The project will accelerate the PI's development as an independent researcher in bioengineering and cancer research while strengthening statewide research infrastructure, interdisciplinary training, and translational science. It will strengthen collaborations with the Stephenson Cancer Center and Route 66 SPORE at the university’s Health Sciences campus, while expanding engagement with the nationally recognized MD Anderson Cancer Center, thereby broadening scientific perspectives and contributing to workforce development at the intersection of engineering, data science, and oncology. This project is supported by the EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: EPSCoR Research Fellows (ERF). The ERF program supports early- and mid-career investigators in eligible jurisdictions to develop collaborations at the nation’s private, government or academic research institutions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.