University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute’s Post

Today at the University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute’s Annual Research Symposium, participants learned how UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are joining forces to develop radiopharmaceuticals to diagnose and treat neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) — a rare and highly vascularized type of tumor. Alexis Sanwick, a nuclear engineering graduate student at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, presented details about this important research. Sanwick is working under the leadership of UT Assistant Professor Ivis Chaple Gore, PhD and Nikki Thiele, a staff scientist in ORNL’s Chemical Sciences Division. Gore’s research is supported by the Science Alliance’s StART program, which funds collaborative research between UT and ORNL. NETs affect about four in every 100,000 people, according to the National Institutes of Health — and currently, there are only a handful of FDA-approved radiopharmaceuticals available to diagnose and treat them. Survival rates vary, with pancreatic NETs posing the highest risk, as fewer than 25% of patients survive beyond five years post-diagnosis. This work reflects UT-ORII’s commitment to advancing radiopharmaceutical therapies through its newest Convergent Research Initiative, Oak Ridge National LaboratoryUniversity of Tennessee, Knoxville University of Tennessee System UTHSC Office of Research University of Tennessee Research