Cancer Warriors & Radiobiophotonics - Dr. Rao Papineni

Cancer Warriors and Radiobiophotonics at Cancun RRS 2017

Initiating this blog on 9/11 Remembrance Day, would like to share some of our recent events and also the program ahead from my lab.

Late Breaking Presentation

We are pleased to share that the "Late Breaking" Research submission

Title: "Focused irradiation of EDL muscle bundle and functional study- a feasibility study." 

 Dr. Rao Papineni & Dr. George Rodney

was accepted at the  Radiation Research Society  (RRS 2017) Meeting at Cancun.  This Work from Papineni & Rodney Labs will showcase the Feasibility & the Novel Approach in Assessing Radiation Effects on individual Muscle.  With one in three cancer patients loosing the battle due to muscle related issues, this technological advance will be crucial in future mitigation studies. This work will highlight the design and development of a miniaturized X-ray muscle Irradiation system.

#Cachexia #MuscleAtrophy #X-Ray  

The 63rd Annual Meeting of the Radiation Research Society is to be held at the Grand Fiesta Americana Coral Beach in Cancun, Mexico on October 15-18, 2017. The scientific program covers state-of-the-art in radiation sciences with an emphasis on Translating Radiation Research: From Risk to Therapy.  Here, I had the privilege to design and develop a symposium on a new and growing field of Radiobiophotonics.

SYMPOSIUM  Recent Advances in Radiobiophotonics, Nanomedicine and Imaging

  
Chair: Dr. Rao Papineni

Look forward to seeing many of you at Cancun.


Finally, adding the short article that was requested by a Tabloid to showcase the 25 year achievement in grooming young minds towards advance science, medicine and innovation.

 http://www.chennaicitynews.net/news/nextgen-cancer-warriors-in-making-by-dr-rao-v-l-papineni-53722/

               

              NextGen Cancer Warriors in Making

                                    by Dr. Rao V. L. Papineni

 

The bitter truth is that cancer the deadly human scourge will plague humanity for generations to come.  We might have to chalk out Moonshot, Mars, and Jupitershot battles with time, to win this war.  A silent movement has been taking place at scores of research labs to coax, cajole, and entice young minds to get baptized into Cancer Research.  We invite High School students and impart scientific knowledge, training, and encouragement grooming them for future science and medicine program.  High school/college students join my laboratory or Papineni Labs Projects elsewhere during summer as interns and broaden their horizons. We are proud to celebrate 25th summer in training young minds akin to gurukul traditions.  At every opportunity, I keep remembering my favorite teacher (Hindi) Mr. K. Sridhar from Hindu Theological high School, Madras.  He used to inculcate us with appropriate slokas the power and value of knowledge transfer and to train students. 

The bitter truth is that cancer the deadly human scourge will plague humanity for generations to come.

It all started when my mentor Prof. Tom Boyde at University of HongKong asked me one summer day early 1990’s to draft a plan and proposal to train a summer student from Eton College, United Kingdom.  Thus I started with this heart-warming knowledge transfer program.  Though all students did not directly work on cancer related projects, they definitely had scope to pursue oncology ahead.  I still recall the first mini-project Jonathan Leong of Eton worked on-  To trick the immune machinery in making better affinity antibodies.  Simple idea back in 90’s I believed, turns out a useful path for current cancer immunotherapy.

Dr.Jyotsna Rao with Arnav and Pranayi

  They themselves have their own robust summer training programs.  This summer turned out to be exciting with couple of high school students Arnav Sankaranthi of Fremont, California, and Ms. Pranayi Pala of Dallas, taking courage and embarked on a trans-continental trip to work on a collaborative project on Radiomics.  They both joined Dr. Jyotsna Rao at Apollo Hospital India learning all about cancer Diagnostics while working on other project.  Both these kids accomplished quite a lot during the 2- week program and are working on a short review article.  Earlier this summer, Arnav along with his twin brother Abhinav  Sankaranthi and Ms. Somya Moyya of UCSD went through training at Dr. George Rodney’s lab at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. 

                 students/interns                                                                                                                         

  There is no clear data; however I believe these summer research programs going on for decades all over the globe have generated great cancer warriors.  The cross-border and trans-continental training programs will add new perspectives and sharpen the skills of the young minds. It’s time to collaborate, exchange ideas and skills in this combat.   Cancer: the horrid scourge is not invincible.   

In an Industry setup, my lab had more opportunities to young minds from different walks of life. I am grateful to my friends and collaborators Dr. Shahid Umar of KUMC, Dr. George Rodney, Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Jyotsna Rao, Apollo Hospitals, and others who help in this process.

Summer Science and Lab Fun

Dr. Rao V. L. Papineni is an Adjunct faculty member at University of Kansas Medical Center, and a molecular theragnostics scientist at PXI,  USA. He received his doctoral degree in Biochemistry from University of Hong Kong (British Terr). Dr. Papineni had his early education from University of Madras, where he earned his Bachelors and Master’s Degree. After ten years in Research and Faculty positions at University of Hong Kong and Baylor college of Medicine (USA), he joined Kodak/Carestream Health, USA.  Dr. Papineni has made several inventions and chaired scientific sessions in International

Papineni Labs are Biomedical Research Labs in Honor of my Father Mr. Papineni Venkateswara Rao.

http://www.radres.org/blogpost/961725/250704/Cancer-Therapy--Radiobiophotonics-with-Rao-Papineni
 

    "Molecular Imaging - Wisdom to See for Maladies to Flee"
                                                                                                                                             Dr. Rao V. L. Papineni

 

Pain, Penile Erection, Panacea, in Poison Pillbox.

        Pain, Penile Erection, Panacea, in Poison Pillbox.          

 

Hunting Pain-Relief Drugs at a Marine Snail’s Pace

 This blog includes the recent note published http://www.chennaicitynews.net/news/hunting-pain-relief-drugsat-a-marine-snails-pace-by-dr-rao-v-l-papineni-40945/ and the potential of these cysteine scaffolds as pharma in Pain, Erectile Dysfunction, and aging related diseases.

Two recent news items brought back memories about my post-doctoral days in Baylor College of Medicine two decades ago. One directly associated with Tamilnadu that describes about the Irula Snake Hunters recruited for Python round-up at Miami Everglades https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/01/26/florida-is-deploying-snake-hunters-from-india-to-catch-invasive-pythons/?utm_term=.40fad59a62ad.  The other exciting news that appeared in innumerable news sites is about University of Utah’s finding of “Fish hunting Marine Conus Snail and its venom’s effect in Pain Management.  British Broadcasting Corporation BBC pointed out how the cone snail venom RG1A can be clinically used to treat chronic pain http://www.bbc.com/news/health-39028557.  These toxins can provide treatment with no side effects such as addiction which is common with morphine or other Pain relief drugs.  Globally, the Pain Management drug market is around 60 Billion US Dollars annually.

I started my post-doctoral research career at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, working on these conotoxins.  This was in mid-90’s we made some seminal advances in this field primarily by thinking smarter that the Conus snail, producing modified version of toxin by chemical tinkering and by genetic manipulations using recombinant technologies ( Papineni et. al. J. Biol. Chem. 2002  http://www.jbc.org/content/276/26/23589.long).   The conus snails are found in the Philippines, Australia and Indonesia. The snail feeds on fish by injecting its venom using a harpoon like projectile from its mouth. The fish hunting process is so fast that the word “snail pace” gets a whole new meaning.  A link here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcBmMPJrrKk will provide a glimpse of the weaponry, predator-prey mismatch. There are nearly 500 species of snail, and each one produce more than 100 different toxin molecules in its venom. These molecules are peptides, called Conotoxins, and its action in prey is by muscle paralysis.

Those were the exciting days, working with conotoxins, its pharmacology, very rewarding- note, it was a virgin territory.  Each chemical modification I made, and each recombinant toxin generated by

our collaborator in Puerto Rico Dr. Krishna Baksi, started providing tantalizing results.  It was all conotoxin in my life those days… During the finishing stages of the work, I invited Dr. Steen Pedersen, one of my many mentors in my life, for a brooski at BCM’s favorite watering-hole Gingerman.  My neighbor Arun who was there took the opportunity and started complaining to Steen about my incessant conotoxin related harangue during the course of that work.

Back in late 90’s, it was a taboo in academia to think of patents or commercialization. That view on patents rapidly changed by the turn of the century.  A patent on conotoxin was successfully filed in Utah by Dr. Baldomero Olivera.  It was nice to notice that work was duly cited in the USPTO patent. Dr. Olivera is a pioneer in conotoxins establishing a dedicated conotoxin laboratory in 1987. They determined the effect of Omega-conotoxin which specifically blocks neuronal voltage activated Ca⁺⁺ channels and estimated to be 1,000 times more powerful than morphine. The drug was targeted to provide pain relief to patients with HIV and cancer.

Dr. Steen Pedersen and Dr. Rao Papineni at Biophysics Meeting, New Orleans 2000.

Along with Conotoxin, we worked on recombinant cobratoxins looking at ion channel structure-function.  The Miami Everglades Snake Hunters news item again made me look back at our two decade old research work on toxins and ion channel pharmacology.  Romulus Whitaker seen with Irula Snake Hunters is a world renowned herpetologists and founded the Madras Snake Park in my Hometown Madras.  A center, where Rom rehabilitated Irula Tribesmen in developing ant-venom drugs by extracting snake venom.  A haven for future toxin based Pain pharma. Utilizing the progress in Systems Pharmacology the past two decades, at PACT & Health, we are interested in harnessing the power of these cysteine scaffolds in Pain, Erectile Dysfunction, and anti-aging Drug Development.

Dr. Rao V. L. Papineni

Professor (Adjunct- assistant)

University of Kansas Medical Center KUMC

USA

Papineni@graduate.hku.hk

docpapineni@gmail.com

Dr. Rao V. L. Papineni is an Adjunct faculty member at University of Kansas Medical Center, and a molecular theragnostics scientist at PXI, USA. He received his doctoral degree in Biochemistry from University of Hong Kong (British Terr). Dr. Papineni had his early education from University of Madras, where he earned his Bachelors and Master’s Degree. After ten years in Research and Faculty positions at University of Hong Kong and Baylor college of Medicine (USA), he joined Kodak/Carestream Health, USA.  Dr. Papineni has made several inventions and chaired scientific sessions in International Biomedical Meetings and serves on the editorial board of Nanotech and Experimental Pharmacology journals.  As a distinguished scientist, he initiated advanced research programs to study Inflammation and oncology utilizing molecular imaging and nanotechnology based molecular tools.  He recently identified and coined “Radiobioluminescence” a novel X-ray induced radiation phenomena that have immense potential in development of cancer therapeutic strategies.  His lab is instrumental in development of MIGRT  Molecular Image Guided Radiation Therapy technology and utilizing radiobiophotonics and MIGRT in Drug Discovery related to Cancer and radiation medicine.

http://www.chennaicitynews.net/news/hunting-pain-relief-drugsat-a-marine-snails-pace-by-dr-rao-v-l-papineni-40945/