 |
Richard
Heller, Ph.D.
E-mail:
rheller@hsc.usf.edu |
Training
Research
Interests
The long
range goal of our research is the development of therapies that can be
utilized to facilitate the treatment of human diseases that are not amenable
to standard therapies. The major emphasis of the laboratory is the development
of drug and gene delivery systems. The research is examining the use of
electroporation to increase the permeability of cells to allow cellular
uptake of molecules.
One research project combines a chemotherapeutic agent (bleomycin) with electroporation to treat solid tumors. This combination therapy has been shown to be an effective treatment for cutaneous malignancies in both animal and human studies. The procedure has also been shown to have potential for treating sarcomas, hepatomas and pancreatic tumors. Other chemotherapeutic agents are also being examined for their potential to be used in this treatment.
The other main area that the laboratory has also been very active is the development of efficient ways to deliver plasmid DNA. In vivo electroporation is being used to effectively deliver genes to both normal tissue and solid tumors. Animal studies using plasmid DNA encoding either reporter genes or therapeutic molecules have demonstrated the utility of this delivery system in treating solid tumors.
Search
for publications by: 
This
search will be conducted at the US National Library of Medicine (NLM) and PubMed.
Publications
1. Heller,
R., Jaroszeski, M.J., Reintgen, D., Puleo, C., DeConti, R., Gilbert,
R., and Glass, L.F. Treatment of cutaneous and subcutaneous tumors with
electrochemotherapy using intralesional bleomycin. Cancer 83(1):148-157,
1998.
2. Jaroszeski, MJ, Gilbert, R, Nicolau, C and Heller, R. In vivo gene delivery by electroporation. Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews 35:131-137, 1999.
3. Niu, G., Heller, R., Catlett-Falcone, R., Coppola, D., Jaroszeski, M., Dalton, W., Jove, R. and Yu, H. Gene therapy with dominant-negative Stat3 suppresses growth of the murine melanoma B16 Tumor in vivo. Cancer Research 59:5059-5063, 1999.
4. Heller, L., Jaroszeski, M.J., Coppola, D., Pottinger, C., Gilbert, R. and Heller, R. Electrically mediated plasmid DNA delivery to hepatocellular carcinomas in vivo. Gene Therapy 7:826-829, 2000.
5. Heller, L.C., Pottinger, C., Jaroszeski, M.J., Gilbert, R., and Heller, R. In vivo electroporation of plasmids encoding GMCSF and interleukin-2 into existing B16 melanomas combined with electrochemotherapy induces long term antitumor immunity, Melanoma Research, 10:577-583, 2000.
6. Lucas, ML and Heller, R. Immunomodulation by electrically enhanced delivery of a plasmid encoding IL-12 to murine skeletal muscle. Mol. Therapy, 3(1):47-53, 2001.
Cancer Biology Ph.D. Program
H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, MRC-4 East
12902 Magnolia Drive
Tampa, Florida 33612
Phone: 813-745-6876
E-mail: CancerPHD@moffitt.org
Copyright © 2000 University of South Florida