“Because focused ultrasound has such a powerful combination of features — it’s an entirely unique and minimally invasive tool that can trigger a variety of responses in the body — it has tremendous potential for treating a host of medical problems,” says Richard Price, PhD, who is research director at the University of Virginia Focused Ultrasound Center. “There are probably many applications for focused ultrasound that we haven’t even begun to contemplate yet.”
One way to get drugs through the blood-brain barrier: smuggle them across using sound waves.
The blood-brain barrier, a name given to the tightly packed vascular cells in the brain’s capillaries, keeps the central nervous system remarkably free of most pathogens. But that defense is a major challenge for delivering drugs that treat brain disorders. One reason glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, is so lethal is that treatments can’t get across the barrier to reach tumors.
/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.png00Rich Price/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.pngRich Price2019-05-29 17:07:402019-05-29 17:08:26Riding a Wave of Sound
An early-stage, non-invasive therapy, focused ultrasound works by focusing multiple beams of ultrasound onto targets deep within the body with a high degree of accuracy. In doing so, the focused sonic energy can destroy targeted cells while sparing adjacent normal tissue. But that’s not all it can do – as well as ablating tumours or other disease targets, focused ultrasound can be used to stimulate an immune response, open the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and much more.
For patients suffering from metastatic breast cancer, where the disease has spread throughout the body, the survival rate is only 22%. These women and men face ongoing treatment for the rest of their lives, often with harsh side effects. Although treatable, there is no cure for metastatic disease.
The University of Virginia Health System is working to change that, and has launched a clinical trial that uses groundbreaking focused ultrasound technology to target metastatic breast cancer and make tumors responsive to immunotherapy—without surgery.
/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.png00Rich Price/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.pngRich Price2017-11-20 16:36:022017-11-21 17:57:19Tackling Cancer Through Team Science
Can focused ultrasound be used as a tool to allow therapeutic agents to reach deadly brain tumors? Is it possible to stop the progression and spread of breast cancer? If Parkinson’s disease is diagnosed early, could its effect on the brain be reversed? These questions and more are being tackled by scientists in the Price Laboratory at the University of Virginia’s Biomedical Engineering Department.
The Focused Ultrasound Foundation announced that Richard Price, professor of biomedical engineering, radiology and radiation oncology, has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the $75,000 Andrew J. Lockhart Memorial Prize.
Terry and Eugene Lockhart, the parents of the award’s namesake, presented the prize on Oct. 2.
/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.png00Rich Price/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.pngRich Price2017-10-11 12:00:152017-10-19 16:42:53Price Earns Inaugural Prize for Cancer Treatment Using Focused Ultrasound
Researchers at the University of Virginia have developed a novel, non-invasive approach to deliver therapeutic gene and restore dopaminergic neuron function in a rat model of Parkinson’s disease (PD). The approach used a combination of magnetic resonance (MR) image-guided focused ultrasound (FUS) and brain-penetrating nanoparticles (BPN).
/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.png00Rich Price/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.pngRich Price2017-06-09 16:14:332017-10-05 15:07:29Bioinsights Story on Our Nano Letters Parkinson's Gene Therapy Paper
Researchers at the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore have developed a new, non-invasive and non-toxic genetic therapeutic technique to restore dopaminergic neuron function in rats suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
The Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA) and Cancer Research Institute (CRI) are collaborating with the Foundation to fund a new preclinical research project using focused ultrasound to enhance immunotherapy for melanoma brain metastases.
/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.png00Rich Price/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.pngRich Price2016-01-01 14:40:532017-10-05 18:37:05Focused Ultrasound Foundation teams up on melanoma brain metastases research
Biomedical engineers at the University of Virginia (UVA) and John Hopkins University (JHU) have developed a prolific collaboration that has generated several long-term, multi-million-dollar focused ultrasound research grants.
Richard Price, PhD, Research Director of the UVA Focused Ultrasound Center and Justin Hanes, PhD, Director of the Center for Nanomedicine at the Wilmer Eye Institute and JHU School of Medicine, are developing nanoparticles that can be delivered deep into the brain with the assistance of focused ultrasound. Their work has earned them nearly $7 million of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding from 2011 to 2020 to propel their discoveries to the clinic.
/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.png00Rich Price/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.pngRich Price2015-06-25 15:39:392017-10-05 15:40:10U.Va. And Hopkins Collaborate To Use Fus To Deliver Nanoparticles Into The Brain
Biomedical engineers at the University of Virginia (UVA) and Johns Hopkins University (JHU) have developed a prolific collaboration that has generated several long-term, multi-million-dollar focused ultrasound research grants.
Richard Price, PhD, Research Director of the UVA Focused Ultrasound Center and Justin Hanes, PhD, Director of the Center for Nanomedicine at the Wilmer Eye Institute and JHU School of Medicine, are developing nanoparticles that can be delivered deep into the brain with the assistance of focused ultrasound. Their work has earned them nearly $7 million of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding from 2011 to 2020 to propel their discoveries to the clinic.
/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.png00awp-admin/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.pngawp-admin2015-06-16 10:10:462017-10-05 15:09:51UVA and Hopkins Collaborate to Use FUS to Deliver Nanoparticles into the Brain
The most common form of brain cancer, glioblastoma, unfortunately is also one of the most deadly and difficult to treat. The statistics are stark: It kills about 95 percent of its victims within five years of diagnosis.
Surgery and radiation have only limited effectiveness because glioblastoma is particularly aggressive, infiltrating brain tissue surrounding the primary tumor. The use of chemotherapy to destroy the invasive tendrils is equally ineffective. The blood–brain barrier — a coating of special cells around capillaries in the brain — keeps everything but a handful of necessary nutrients from crossing to the brain’s extracellular fluid from the blood.
/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.png00awp-admin/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.pngawp-admin2015-05-24 10:31:192017-10-05 15:10:11Getting through to Brain Cancer
Unfortunately, the most common form of brain cancer, glioblastoma, is also one of the deadliest and most difficult to treat. The statistics are stark: it kills about 95 percent of its victims within five years of diagnosis.
Research activities at the Foundation’s first Center of Excellence, located at the University of Virginia, have once again made national news. The Center’s Research Director Richard J. Price, PhD and his collaborator at Johns Hopkins University, Justin Hanes, PhD, have received a $3.3 million, five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health.
/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.png00Rich Price/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.pngRich Price2012-03-14 15:29:362017-10-05 15:31:16Foundation’s First Research Award Recipient, Richard Price, Receives $3.3 Million in Follow On Funding from the NIH
The most common primary brain cancer is glioblastoma, a highly aggressive and deadly form of tumor that kills about 95 percent of its victims within five years of diagnosis.
Like other brain cancers, it is extremely difficult to treat because glioblastomas are usually deeply embedded within healthy brain tissue and therefore nearly impossible to safely access. Chemotherapy drugs cannot reach these tumors because a membrane between the bloodstream and brain tissue, called the blood-brain barrier, blocks them.
/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.png00awp-admin/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.pngawp-admin2012-02-28 10:07:382017-10-05 15:10:28NIH Awards $3.3 Million Grant to Research Barrier-Breaking Brain Cancer Treatment
A University of Virginia researcher has received a 3-year grant from The Hartwell Foundation to further his research on an innovative method to treat pediatric brain tumors.
/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.png00Rich Price/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.pngRich Price2011-01-21 15:34:142017-10-05 15:34:39Richard J. Price, Ph.D., receives Hartwell Individual Biomedical Research Award
Books and lectures are just the starting points for learning how to design and build a new technology. Truly learning engineering design methods requires getting your hands on power tools, and sometimes welding torches.
As part of their first-year “Introduction to Engineering” course, students from the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science learned the design process by building, and racing, off-road baby strollers.
/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.png00awp-admin/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/price-lab-banner-all-caps.pngawp-admin2010-12-09 10:23:072017-10-05 15:10:46Whoa, Baby! U.Va. Engineering Students Learn Design Process by Building Off-Road Strollers
Breaking the Ultrasound Barrier to Fight Disease
/0 Comments/in News /by Rich PriceSpring 2019
“Because focused ultrasound has such a powerful combination of features — it’s an entirely unique and minimally invasive tool that can trigger a variety of responses in the body — it has tremendous potential for treating a host of medical problems,” says Richard Price, PhD, who is research director at the University of Virginia Focused Ultrasound Center. “There are probably many applications for focused ultrasound that we haven’t even begun to contemplate yet.”
Read More
Riding a Wave of Sound
/0 Comments/in News /by Rich PriceSpring 2019
One way to get drugs through the blood-brain barrier: smuggle them across using sound waves.
Focused ultrasound opens the blood-brain barrier
/0 Comments/in News /by Rich PriceFall 2018
An early-stage, non-invasive therapy, focused ultrasound works by focusing multiple beams of ultrasound onto targets deep within the body with a high degree of accuracy. In doing so, the focused sonic energy can destroy targeted cells while sparing adjacent normal tissue. But that’s not all it can do – as well as ablating tumours or other disease targets, focused ultrasound can be used to stimulate an immune response, open the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and much more.
Read More
Tackling Cancer Through Team Science
/0 Comments/in News /by Rich PriceFall 2017
For patients suffering from metastatic breast cancer, where the disease has spread throughout the body, the survival rate is only 22%. These women and men face ongoing treatment for the rest of their lives, often with harsh side effects. Although treatable, there is no cure for metastatic disease.
The University of Virginia Health System is working to change that, and has launched a clinical trial that uses groundbreaking focused ultrasound technology to target metastatic breast cancer and make tumors responsive to immunotherapy—without surgery.
Read More.
Investigator Profile: Richard Price, PhD
/0 Comments/in News /by Rich PriceOctober 17, 2017.
Can focused ultrasound be used as a tool to allow therapeutic agents to reach deadly brain tumors? Is it possible to stop the progression and spread of breast cancer? If Parkinson’s disease is diagnosed early, could its effect on the brain be reversed? These questions and more are being tackled by scientists in the Price Laboratory at the University of Virginia’s Biomedical Engineering Department.
Read More.
Price Earns Inaugural Prize for Cancer Treatment Using Focused Ultrasound
/0 Comments/in News /by Rich PriceOctober 11, 2017
The Focused Ultrasound Foundation announced that Richard Price, professor of biomedical engineering, radiology and radiation oncology, has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the $75,000 Andrew J. Lockhart Memorial Prize.
Terry and Eugene Lockhart, the parents of the award’s namesake, presented the prize on Oct. 2.
Read More.
Bioinsights Story on Our Nano Letters Parkinson’s Gene Therapy Paper
/0 Comments/in News /by Rich PriceSpring 2017
Researchers at the University of Virginia have developed a novel, non-invasive approach to deliver therapeutic gene and restore dopaminergic neuron function in a rat model of Parkinson’s disease (PD). The approach used a combination of magnetic resonance (MR) image-guided focused ultrasound (FUS) and brain-penetrating nanoparticles (BPN).
Read More.
Brain-penetrating nanoparticles restore neuron function
/0 Comments/in News /by Rich PriceMay 25, 2017
Researchers at the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore have developed a new, non-invasive and non-toxic genetic therapeutic technique to restore dopaminergic neuron function in rats suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
Read more
Focused Ultrasound Foundation teams up on melanoma brain metastases research
/0 Comments/in News /by Rich Price20 August 2015
The Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA) and Cancer Research Institute (CRI) are collaborating with the Foundation to fund a new preclinical research project using focused ultrasound to enhance immunotherapy for melanoma brain metastases.
Read More.
U.Va. And Hopkins Collaborate To Use Fus To Deliver Nanoparticles Into The Brain
/0 Comments/in News /by Rich PriceJune 25, 2015.
Biomedical engineers at the University of Virginia (UVA) and John Hopkins University (JHU) have developed a prolific collaboration that has generated several long-term, multi-million-dollar focused ultrasound research grants.
Richard Price, PhD, Research Director of the UVA Focused Ultrasound Center and Justin Hanes, PhD, Director of the Center for Nanomedicine at the Wilmer Eye Institute and JHU School of Medicine, are developing nanoparticles that can be delivered deep into the brain with the assistance of focused ultrasound. Their work has earned them nearly $7 million of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding from 2011 to 2020 to propel their discoveries to the clinic.
Read More.
UVA and Hopkins Collaborate to Use FUS to Deliver Nanoparticles into the Brain
/0 Comments/in News /by awp-adminJune 16, 2015
Biomedical engineers at the University of Virginia (UVA) and Johns Hopkins University (JHU) have developed a prolific collaboration that has generated several long-term, multi-million-dollar focused ultrasound research grants.
Richard Price, PhD, Research Director of the UVA Focused Ultrasound Center and Justin Hanes, PhD, Director of the Center for Nanomedicine at the Wilmer Eye Institute and JHU School of Medicine, are developing nanoparticles that can be delivered deep into the brain with the assistance of focused ultrasound. Their work has earned them nearly $7 million of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding from 2011 to 2020 to propel their discoveries to the clinic.
Read more
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Getting through to Brain Cancer
/0 Comments/in News /by awp-adminSpring 2015
The most common form of brain cancer, glioblastoma, unfortunately is also one of the most deadly and difficult to treat. The statistics are stark: It kills about 95 percent of its victims within five years of diagnosis.
Surgery and radiation have only limited effectiveness because glioblastoma is particularly aggressive, infiltrating brain tissue surrounding the primary tumor. The use of chemotherapy to destroy the invasive tendrils is equally ineffective. The blood–brain barrier — a coating of special cells around capillaries in the brain — keeps everything but a handful of necessary nutrients from crossing to the brain’s extracellular fluid from the blood.
Read more
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Save
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Tool Enables Better Delivery of Brain Cancer Treatment
/0 Comments/in News /by Rich PriceJune 5, 2014.
Unfortunately, the most common form of brain cancer, glioblastoma, is also one of the deadliest and most difficult to treat. The statistics are stark: it kills about 95 percent of its victims within five years of diagnosis.
Read More.
Foundation’s First Research Award Recipient, Richard Price, Receives $3.3 Million in Follow On Funding from the NIH
/0 Comments/in News /by Rich PriceMarch 14, 2012.
Research activities at the Foundation’s first Center of Excellence, located at the University of Virginia, have once again made national news. The Center’s Research Director Richard J. Price, PhD and his collaborator at Johns Hopkins University, Justin Hanes, PhD, have received a $3.3 million, five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health.
Read More.
NIH Awards $3.3 Million Grant to Research Barrier-Breaking Brain Cancer Treatment
/0 Comments/in News /by awp-adminFebruary 28, 2012
The most common primary brain cancer is glioblastoma, a highly aggressive and deadly form of tumor that kills about 95 percent of its victims within five years of diagnosis.
Like other brain cancers, it is extremely difficult to treat because glioblastomas are usually deeply embedded within healthy brain tissue and therefore nearly impossible to safely access. Chemotherapy drugs cannot reach these tumors because a membrane between the bloodstream and brain tissue, called the blood-brain barrier, blocks them.
Read more
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Richard J. Price, Ph.D., receives Hartwell Individual Biomedical Research Award
/0 Comments/in News /by Rich PriceJanuary 21, 2011.
A University of Virginia researcher has received a 3-year grant from The Hartwell Foundation to further his research on an innovative method to treat pediatric brain tumors.
Read More.
Whoa, Baby! U.Va. Engineering Students Learn Design Process by Building Off-Road Strollers
/0 Comments/in News /by awp-adminDecember 9, 2010
Books and lectures are just the starting points for learning how to design and build a new technology. Truly learning engineering design methods requires getting your hands on power tools, and sometimes welding torches.
As part of their first-year “Introduction to Engineering” course, students from the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science learned the design process by building, and racing, off-road baby strollers.
Read more
Save
Save