Research Summary

Robert Flavell, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Section of Molecular Imaging in the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at the University of California, San Francisco. He received his medical degree from Weill Cornell Medical College, and his PhD from the Rockefeller University as part of the Tri-Institutional MD PhD program. He completed his one-year internship at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Dr. Flavell completed a four-year diagnostic radiology residency at the University of California, San Francisco, where he also finished a Nuclear Medicine fellowship. In June 2016. he joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor in Residence. Since 2019, he has been the Chief of the Division of Molecular Imaging and Therapeutics (formerly nuclear medicine), in the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging.

Dr. Flavell’s laboratory focuses on the development of new molecular imaging and therapeutic tools for better understanding of disease progression in patients with prostate and other cancers. One area of interest is the relationship between acidic interstitial pH and disease progression, where he has developed new tools to directly image tumor pH using hyperpolarized 13C MRI and positron emission tomography (PET). Another major focus is the development of novel theranostic agents, where new therapies are paired with imaging agents against the same target. Dr. Flavell's research spans from basic chemistry and chemical biology projects, to translational and clinical studies.

Research Funding

  • R01CA271606
    Flavell (Contact PI) / Wiita
    7/2022 – 6/2027
    Development of CD46 theranostics for imaging and treatment of multiple myeloma
    The goal of this proposal is to develop theranostic agents for imaging and treatment for multiple myeloma

  • R01CA279203
    Flavell (Contact PI) / Sriram / Seo
    05/01/2023 – 04/30/2028
    Systematic evaluation of toxicity and therapeutic efficacy in CD46 directed radioligand therapy
    The goal of this proposal is to develop 225Ac labelled, CD46 directed radioligand therapy, and systematically test its toxicity and therapeutic efficacy using novel dosimetric and metabolomic biomarkers in preclinical models.

  • R01 CA 266666
    VanBrocklin (Contact PI) / Flavell / Aggarwal
    8/22 - 7/26
    Molecular imaging of novel PARP inhibitor nanomedicine delivery
    Major Goals: Develop novel PARP inhibitor nanomedicine and a companion PET biomarker for treatment of prostate cancer.

  • HT94252410147
    Flavell (PI)
    6/24 - 5/27
    Targeted Theranostic Nanopolymers for Imaging and Alpha Radiopharmaceutical Therapy of Prostate Cancer
    The goal of this proposal it to develop an improved PSMA (prostate specific membrane antigen) targeting agent, employing multiple copies of PSMA targeting ligands together with a star shaped nanopolymer, to improve the delivery of therapeutic radiation to prostate cancer.

Education

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, B.A., 1996-2000, Mathematics and chemistry
The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, laboratory of Dr. Tom W. Muir, PhD, 2002 - 2010, Peptide and protein chemistry, radiolabeling methods, and PET imaging
Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, MD, 2002 - 2010, Medicine
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 2010 - 2011, Transitional year intern
Dept of Radiology, UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco, CA, 2011 - 2015, Diagnostic radiology residency
Dept of Radiology, UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco, CA 2015 - 2016, Nuclear medicine fellowship

Honors & Awards

  • 2000
    Honors for undergraduate thesis in chemistry, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
  • 2013
    Introduction to Academic Radiology Program, American Roentgen Ray Society
  • 2014
    Certificate of Merit, 2014 Radiology Society of North America meeting
  • 2014
    University of California, San Francisco catalyst program consultation award
  • 2015
    Radiology Society of North America, Roentgen Resident Research award
  • 2015
    Association of University Radiologists Research Scholar Program
  • 2015
    Certificate of Merit, Radiology Society of North America Meeting
  • 2016
    Runner up, Surbeck Scholar’s Award, University of California, San Francisco
  • 2017
    Howard S. Stern Research Award, Society of Abdominal Radiology
  • 2017
    Prostate Cancer Foundation David Blitzer Young Investigator Award
  • 2017
    New Directions in Prostate Cancer Award, Prostate Cancer Program, UCSF
  • 2018
    Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Future Leaders Academy
  • 2019
    Dean's Prize in Mentoring, University of California, San Francisco
  • 2020
    Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging "Ones to Watch"

Selected Publications

  1. R. Lall, K.N. Bobba, A. Bidkar, Y. Seo, R. Flavell, A. Niknejad, M. Anwar. A Sparse Uncollimated ? Counter Network for In Vivo Dose Reconstruction in 225Ac-Based Targeted Alpha Therapy. International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics. 2024 Oct 1; 120(2):s109.  View on PubMed
  2. Meher N, Bidkar AP, Wadhwa A, Bobba KN, Dhrona S, Dasari C, Mu C, Fong COY, Cámara JA, Ali U, Basak M, Bulkley D, Steri V, Fontaine SD, Zhu J, Oskowitz A, Aggarwal RR, Sriram R, Chou J, Wilson DM, Seo Y, Santi DV, Ashley GW, VanBrocklin HF, Flavell RR. PET Imaging Using 89Zr Labeled StarPEG Nanocarriers Reveals Heterogeneous Enhanced Permeability and Retention (EPR) in Prostate Cancer. Mol Cancer Ther. 2024 Sep 27.  View on PubMed
  3. Yadav S, Lowery B, Tuchayi AM, Jiang F, Saelee R, Aggarwal RR, Juarez R, Flavell RR, Hope TA. Impact of Posttreatment SPECT/CT on Patient Management During 177Lu-PSMA-617 Radiopharmaceutical Therapy. J Nucl Med. 2024 Sep 03; 65(9):1395-1401.  View on PubMed
  4. Peter R, Bidkar AP, Bobba KN, Zerefa L, Dasari C, Meher N, Wadhwa A, Oskowitz A, Liu B, Miller BW, Vetter K, Flavell RR, Seo Y. 3D small-scale dosimetry and tumor control of 225Ac radiopharmaceuticals for prostate cancer. Sci Rep. 2024 08 27; 14(1):19938.  View on PubMed
  5. Caravaca J, Bobba KN, Du S, Peter R, Gullberg GT, Bidkar AP, Flavell RR, Seo Y. A Technique to Quantify Very Low Activities in Regions of Interest With a Collimatorless Detector. IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2024 Aug; 43(8):2745-2757.  View on PubMed
  6. Diwanji D, Carrodeguas E, Seo Y, Kang H, Soe MH, Chiang JM, Zhang L, Liu C, Behr SC, Flavell RR. Comparative Uptake Patterns of Radioactive Iodine and [18F]-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) in Metastatic Differentiated Thyroid Cancers. J Clin Med. 2024 Jul 06; 13(13).  View on PubMed
  7. Peluso MJ, Ryder D, Flavell RR, Wang Y, Levi J, LaFranchi BH, Deveau TM, Buck AM, Munter SE, Asare KA, Aslam M, Koch W, Szabo G, Hoh R, Deswal M, Rodriguez AE, Buitrago M, Tai V, Shrestha U, Lu S, Goldberg SA, Dalhuisen T, Vasquez JJ, Durstenfeld MS, Hsue PY, Kelly JD, Kumar N, Martin JN, Gambhir A, Somsouk M, Seo Y, Deeks SG, Laszik ZG, VanBrocklin HF, Henrich TJ. Tissue-based T cell activation and viral RNA persist for up to 2 years after SARS-CoV-2 infection. Sci Transl Med. 2024 Jul 03; 16(754):eadk3295.  View on PubMed
  8. Mu C, Liu X, Riselli A, Slater J, Escobar E, Dang D, Drapeau S, Delos Santos R, Andosca S, Nguyen H, Larson PEZ, Bok R, Vigneron DB, Kurhanewicz J, Wilson DM, Flavell RR. Protocol for producing hyperpolarized 13C-bicarbonate for clinical MRI of extracellular pH in aggressive tumors. STAR Protoc. 2024 Sep 20; 5(3):103091.  View on PubMed
  9. Jana D, Han Z, Huang X, Wadhwa A, Raveendran A, Ebeid K, Meher N, Flavell RR, Desai T. Enhanced Prostate-specific Membrane Antigen Targeting by Precision Control of DNA Scaffolded Nanoparticle Ligand Presentation. ACS Nano. 2024 Jul 02; 18(26):16674-16683.  View on PubMed
  10. Kline B, Yadav S, Seo Y, Ippisch RC, Castillo J, Aggarwal RR, Kelley RK, Behr SC, Flavell RR, Lawhn-Heath C, Melisko M, Rugo HS, Wang V, Yom SS, Ha P, Jiang F, Hope TA. 68Ga-FAP-2286 PET of Solid Tumors: Biodistribution, Dosimetry, and Comparison with 18F-FDG. J Nucl Med. 2024 Jun 03; 65(6):938-943.  View on PubMed
  11. Nonna Shakhnazaryan, Nathan Curry, Medini Rastogi, Daniel Avins, Shrina Pandey, Ivan de Kouchkovsky, Daniel Kwon, Arpita Desai, Kelly N. Fitzgerald, Rohit Bose, Jonathan Chou, Terence W. Friedlander, Vadim S Koshkin, Lawrence Fong, Maya Aslam, Khadija Siddiqua, Eric J. Small, Bin Liu, Robert R. Flavell, Rahul Raj Aggarwal. A phase 1b dose escalation study of FOR46, a novel antibody-drug conjugate targeting a tumor-specific epitope of CD46, in combination with enzalutamide (Enza) in patients with metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2024 Jun 1; 42(16_suppl):5066-5066.  View on PubMed
  12. Meher N, Ashley GW, Bobba KN, Wadhwa A, Bidkar AP, Dasari C, Mu C, Sankaranarayanan RA, Serrano JAC, Raveendran A, Bulkley DP, Aggarwal R, Greenland NY, Oskowitz A, Wilson DM, Seo Y, Santi DV, VanBrocklin HF, Flavell RR. Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen Targeted StarPEG Nanocarrier for Imaging and Therapy of Prostate Cancer. Adv Healthc Mater. 2024 Jul; 13(19):e2304618.  View on PubMed
  13. Bidkar AP, Zerefa L, Yadav S, VanBrocklin HF, Flavell RR. Actinium-225 targeted alpha particle therapy for prostate cancer. Theranostics. 2024; 14(7):2969-2992.  View on PubMed
  14. Darryl Mar, Devan Diwanji, Blair Lowery, Li Zhang, Thomas A Hope, Spencer C Behr, Robert R Flavell. Pathologic outcome of incidentally detected tracer-avid lesions in 68Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT for prostate cancer. . 2024 Apr 30; umae008.  View on PubMed
  15. Alanizi AA, Sorlin AM, Parker MFL, López-Álvarez M, Qin H, Lee SH, Blecha J, Rosenberg OS, Engel J, Ohliger MA, Flavell RR, Wilson DM. Bioorthogonal Radiolabeling of Azide-Modified Bacteria Using [18F]FB-sulfo-DBCO. Bioconjug Chem. 2024 Apr 17; 35(4):517-527.  View on PubMed
  16. Diwanji D, Onishi N, Hathi DK, Lawhn-Heath C, Kornak J, Li W, Guo R, Molina-Vega J, Seo Y, Flavell RR, Heditsian D, Brain S, Esserman LJ, Joe BN, Hylton NM, Jones EF, Ray KM. 18F-FDG Dedicated Breast PET Complementary to Breast MRI for Evaluating Early Response to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy. Radiol Imaging Cancer. 2024 03; 6(2):e230082.  View on PubMed
  17. Wadhwa A, Wang S, Patiño-Escobar B, Bidkar AP, Bobba KN, Chan E, Meher N, Bidlingmaier S, Su Y, Dhrona S, Geng H, Sarin V, VanBrocklin HF, Wilson DM, He J, Zhang L, Steri V, Wong SW, Martin TG, Seo Y, Liu B, Wiita AP, Flavell RR. CD46-Targeted Theranostics for PET and 225Ac-Radiopharmaceutical Therapy of Multiple Myeloma. Clin Cancer Res. 2024 03 01; 30(5):1009-1021.  View on PubMed
  18. Sorlin AM, López-Álvarez M, Biboy J, Gray J, Rabbitt SJ, Rahim JU, Lee SH, Bobba KN, Blecha J, Parker MFL, Flavell RR, Engel J, Ohliger M, Vollmer W, Wilson DM. Peptidoglycan-Targeted [18F]3,3,3-Trifluoro-d-alanine Tracer for Imaging Bacterial Infection. JACS Au. 2024 Mar 25; 4(3):1039-1047.  View on PubMed
  19. Bobba KN, Bidkar AP, Wadhwa A, Meher N, Drona S, Sorlin AM, Bidlingmaier S, Zhang L, Wilson DM, Chan E, Greenland NY, Aggarwal R, VanBrocklin HF, He J, Chou J, Seo Y, Liu B, Flavell RR. Development of CD46 targeted alpha theranostics in prostate cancer using 134Ce/225Ac-Macropa-PEG4-YS5. Theranostics. 2024; 14(4):1344-1360.  View on PubMed
  20. Lee SH, Kim JM, López-Álvarez M, Wang C, Sorlin AM, Bobba KN, Pichardo-González PA, Blecha J, Seo Y, Flavell RR, Engel J, Ohliger MA, Wilson DM. Imaging the Bacterial Cell Wall Using N-Acetyl Muramic Acid-Derived Positron Emission Tomography Radiotracers. ACS Sens. 2023 12 22; 8(12):4554-4565.  View on PubMed

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