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Faculty


Eszter Boros, Associate Professor

Eszter Boros

M.S. University of Zurich, 2007
Ph.D. University of British Columbia, 2011
Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School/ MGH, 2011-2015

629 Chemistry

Phone: (631) 632-8572
Email: eszter.boros@stonybrook.edu

The Boros Group Website

Research focus

We harness the rich structural diversity of metal complexes paired with their versatile luminescent and radioactive properties for the development and application of new metal-based molecular imaging probes and therapeutics for personalized medicine. We are interested in the following applications:

Early Transition radiometal chemistry

Increasing availability of high energy, biomedical cyclotrons provides access to radiometals with properties suitable for PET imaging and radiotherapy. We are interested in exploring the the aqueous, radioactive coordination chemistry of early transition metals/pseudolanthanides, specifically Ti(IV), Zr(IV), Sc(III) and Y(III), and applying this chemistry to the imaging and treatment of cancer.
 
Representative publications:
B. A. Vaughn, S. H. Ahn, E. Aluicio-Sarduy, J. Devaraj, A. P Olson, J. W. Engle and E. Boros. Chelation with a Twist: A Bifunctional Chelator to Enable Room Temperature Radiolabeling and Targeted PET Imaging with Scandium-44.Chem. Sci.2019. in press
 
E. E. Racow, J. Kreinbihl, A. G. Cosby, Y. Yang, A. Pandey, E. Boros, C. J. Johnson. A General Approach to Direct Measurement of the Hydration State of Coordination Complexes in the Gas Phase: Variable Temperature Mass Spectrometry. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2019, 141, 14650-14660

Lanthanide-based Imaging probes

The prognosis and survival of patients with aggressive cancers depends on the presence of positive tumor margins (defined as the presence of tumor cells in the surrounding area) post surgical resection. Combining radioactive and luminescent reporters in a targeted molecular probe has the potential to provide pre-operative nuclear imaging, real-time luminescence-guided surgery followed by ex vivo imaging with one single probe. We are interested in employing luminescent lanthanides for in vivo optical imaging by in situ excitation of lanthanide uminescence with Cherenkov radiation emissive radioisotopes. 
 
Representative publications:
A. G. Cosby, S. H. Ahn, E. Boros. Cherenkov Radiation Mediated In Situ Excitation of Discrete Luminescent Lanthanide Complexes.Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, 57, 15496-15499.
 
A. G. Cosby, G. Quevedo, and E. Boros. A High-Throughput Method To Measure Relative Quantum Yield of Lanthanide Complexes for Bioimaging. Inorg. Chem.2019, 58, 10611-10615

Imaging and treatment of bacterial infections with siderophores

Antibiotic resistance is an imminent global health threat. Accelerated diagnosis and new life-saving treatments are needed to overcome resistance. Most pathogens have developed sophisticated mechanisms to sequester the essential metal ion Fe(III) from their host. This process involves Fe(III) chelators called siderophores. Naturally occurring and synthetic siderophores can act as Trojan horses to deliver antibiotics to the site of infection. These conjugates are referred to as sideromycins. We are exploring sideromycins as new therapeutic and imaging tools for the treatment of bacterial infections.

Representative publications:
A. Pandey, C. Savino, S. H. Ahn, Z. Yang, S. G. Van Lanen, E. Boros. Theranostic Gallium Siderophore Ciprofloxacin Conjugate with Broad Spectrum Antibiotic Potency.J. Med. Chem.2019, 62, 9947-9960.

Techniques

Work in our lab is multidisciplinary and encompasses: organic and inorganic chemical synthesis, radiochemistry, analytical chemistry, biological chemistry, in vitro and in vivo imaging in preclinical animal models of disease. We are interested in exploring and understanding the structure-activity relationships of the metal complexes we synthesize, placing us in the realm of medicinal chemistry with an inorganic twist!

 

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