Diagnostic Radiology Research Projects and Clinical Trials

Getting treatment at City of Hope® means you are steps away from labs where exciting new therapies are being developed. That means the new and award-winning research we are conducting moves quickly from the lab to our patients’ bedside.

Interventional Radiology

Edward Boas, M.D., Ph.D.

  •  Lung chemoembolization is a new treatment option for lung cancer or lung metastases that do not respond to systemic therapy and cannot be cured with surgery or radiation.  Rather than injecting chemotherapy into a vein, the chemotherapy is delivered directly into the tumors, which potentially reduces side effects and improves efficacy. Learn more about this trial.
  • Immunoembolization of liver metastases from pancreatic cancer — immunotherapy agents can be delivered directly into liver metastases through the hepatic artery, generating an in situ cancer vaccine. The next step is translating this treatment into a phase I human trial.


Jonathan Kessler, M.D.

  • Cemiplimab and hepatic radioembolization for the treatment of liver-dominant metastatic breast cancer — a pilot trial designed to evaluate the combination of systemic immunotherapy (cemiplimab) and Yttirum-90 radioembolization in patients with metastatic breast cancer to the liver
  • Padeliporfin vascular targeted photodynamic therapy in patients with locally advanced unresectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Learn more about this trial. 
  • Durvalumab and tremelimumab after radioembolization for the treatment of unresectable, locally advanced liver cancer — a Phase 1 study

     

Theranostics

  • Pluvicto, a radioligand therapy that targets PSMA (prostate-specific membrane antigen). View article
Pluvicto, a radioligand therapy for prostate-specific membrane antigen
  • SPECT and PET scanner technologies of tomorrow:
    • Development of a combined gamma/positron system for molecular imaging of the human brain at sub-500-micron spatial resolution
    • AdaptiSPECT-C — a next-generation, adaptive brain imaging SPECT system for drug discovery and clinical imaging
       

Artificial Intelligence

Chandana Lall, M.D., M.B.A., and Ebenezer Daniel, Ph.D. (staff scientist)

  • AI for detection of early pancreatic cancer — a proposed collaboration between City of Hope and Johns Hopkins University Hospital builds on the latter's FELIX project and its large, annotated dataset of computed tomography scans with the goal to improve algorithm performances

Mohammad Eghtedari, M.D., Ph.D.

  • AI for processing of clinical notes — use natural language processing to process notes and radiology and pathology reports and extract categorical clinical information more quickly and accurately

Neuro Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Bihong Beth Chen, M.D., Ph.D.

  • Use advanced neuroimaging, radiomics and radiogenomics to assess the effect of chemotherapy on brain structure and function in cancer patients and survivors. View article
  • Use radiomics and radiogenomics and AI to predict the mutation status of lung cancer brain metastases. View article    

Pre-Clinical Research

Edward Boas, M.D., Ph.D.

  • Interventional oncology bioengineering laboratory — develop the next generation of minimally invasive, image-guided therapies for liver, pancreatic and lung cancer, e.g., local immunotherapy, in situ cancer vaccination, smart materials and intratumoral drug delivery devices. Read the article.
Intratumoral infusion port catheter
Intratumoral infusion port catheter


Mohammad Eghtedari, M.D., Ph.D.

  • Experimental backscatter X-ray machine for ultra-low dose imaging
Reconstructed backscatter and equivalent transmission mode X-rays
Reconstructed backscatter (left) and equivalent transmission mode X-ray (right) of ribs

More Information

Please visit our clinical trials page.