Research Information
Research Interests
My research is focused on the development of novel contrast agents for molecular imaging of cancer. Of particular interest is targeting prostate-specific membrane antigen for the diagnosis of prostate cancer. I’ve been working on prostate-specific membrane antigen for over 14 years, and have successfully developed new chemotherapeutic agents and image agents targeting PSMA. We have rationally designed a highly negatively charged PSMA ligand with binding affinity in nM range. Based on this ligand we synthesized PSMA targeting NIR contrast agents, which can bind specifically to PSMA and can help create highly defined boundaries of the tumor. More recently we also developed PSMA targeting theranostic agents. These agents have shown the ability to effectively inhibit tumor growth in vivo.
Publications
- Xinning Wang, Brian Tsui, Gopolakrishnan Ramamurthy, Ping Zhang, Joseph Meyers, Malcolm E. Kenney, Jonathan Kiechle, Lee Ponsky, James P. Basilion.Theranostic Agents for Photodynamic Therapy of Prostate Cancer by Targeting Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen. Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, 2016, 15, 1834-1844.
- Xinning Wang, Steve S. Huang, Warren D.W. Heston, Hong Guo, Bing-Cheng Wang, James P. Basilion. Development of Targeted Near-Infrared Imaging Agents for Prostate Cancer. Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, 2014, 13, 2595-606.
- Steve S. Huang, Xinning Wang, Yuqing Zhang, Aniruddha Doke, Warren Heston. Improving the biodistribution of PSMA-targeting tracers with a highly negatively charged linker. Prostate, 2014, 74(7), 702-713.