Magee-Womens Research Institute & Foundation

• Preclinical and early-phase evaluation of rectal microbicides, long‑acting antiretroviral injectables and implants for HIV prevention
• Clinical trials in HIV prevention
• Development of ex vivo assays screening anti-inflammatory agents for IBD (ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s Disease
• Using novel imaging methods and analytic techniques to predict changes in disease state in IBD  
• Exploratory work on GI cancer prevention strategies 

Clinical Trials in HIV Prevention

• Weld ED, McGowan I, Anton P, Fuchs EJ, Ho K, Carballo-Dieguez A, Rohan LC, Giguere R, Brand R, Edick S, Bakshi RP, Parsons T, Manohar M, Seigel A, Engstrom J, Elliott J, Jacobson C, Bagia C, Wang L, Al-Khouja A, Hartman DJ, Bumpus NN, Spiegel HML, Marzinke MA, Hendrix CW. Tenofovir Douche as HIV Preexposure Prophylaxis for Receptive Anal Intercourse: Safety, Acceptability, Pharmacokinetics, and Pharmacodynamics (DREAM 01). J Infect Dis. 2024 Apr 12;229(4):1131-1140. (mageewomens.org)
• Riddler SA, Kelly CW, Hoesley CJ, Ho KS, Piper JM, Edick S, Heard F, Doncel GF, Johnson S, Anderson PL, Brand RM, Kunjara Na Ayudhya RP, Bauermeister JA, Hillier SL, Hendrix CW.J A Phase 1 Clinical Trial to Assess the Safety and Pharmacokinetics of a Tenofovir Alafenamide/Elvitegravir Insert Administered Rectally for HIV Prevention.  J Infect Dis. 2024 Sep 23;230(3):696-705 (mageewomens.org)

Preclinical Studies of Long Acting Biodegradable Implants

• Li L, Gatto GJ, Brand RM, Krovi SA, Cottrell ML, Norton C, van der Straten A,  Johnson LM. Long-acting biodegradable implant for sustained delivery of antiretrovirals (ARVs) and hormone. J Control Release; 2021 Dec 10;340:188-199 (mageewomens.org)
• Kinsale TS, Cottrell ML, Li L, Brand R, Gatto G, Luecke E, Norton C, Krovi A, Dumond JB, Rao G, et al. Pharmacokinetic Modeling to Guide Preclinical Development of an Islatravir-Eluting Reservoir-Style Biodegradable Implant for Long-Acting HIV PrEP. Pharmaceutics. 2024; 16(2):201(mageewomens.org)
• Ex Vivo Colorectal Explant Studies 
  Brand RM, Siegel A, Myerski A, Metter EJ, Engstrom J, Brand RE, Squiquera L, Hodge T, Sulley J, Cranston RD, McGowan I. Ranpirnase reduces HIV-1 infection and associated inflammatory changes in a human colorectal explant model. AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses. 2018;34(6) (mageewomens.org)
• Brand RM, Biswas N, Siegel A, Myerski A, Metter EJ, Engstrom J, Brand RE, Cranston RD, McGowan I. Immunological responsiveness of intestinal tissue explants and mucosal mononuclear cells to ex vivo stimulation. J Immunol Methods. 2018 (mageewomens.org)
• Brand RM, Dudley B, Karloski E, Zyhowski A, Raphael R, Pitlor D, Metter EJ, Pai R, Lee K, Brand RE, Uttam S. Immune microenvironment profiling of normal appearing colorectal mucosa biopsied over repeat patient visits reproducibly separates lynch syndrome patients based on their history of colon cancer. Front Oncol. 2023 Aug 11;13:1174831 (mageewomens.org)

Multidimensional Imaging and Spatial Biology of Colorectal Tissue

• Chen M, Ma H, Sun X, Schwartz M, Brand RE, Xu J, Gotsis DS, Nguyen P, Moore BA, Snyder L, Brand RM, Liu Y. Multimodal whole slide image processing pipeline for quantitative mapping of tissue architecture and tissue microenvironment. Npj Imaging. 2025 Jun 10;3:26 (mageewomens.org)
• Kochetov B, Bell PD, Garcia PS, Shalaby AS, Raphael R, Raymond B, Leibowitz BJ, Schoedel K, Brand RM, Brand RE, Yu J, Zhang L, Diergaarde B, Schoen RE, Singhi A, Uttam S. UNSEG: unsupervised segmentation of cells and their nuclei in complex tissue samples. Commun Biol. 2024 Aug 30;7(1):1062 (mageewomens.org)
• Xu J, Sun X, Kim K, Brand RM, Hartman D, Ma H, Brand RE, Bai M, Liu Y. Ultrastructural visualization of chromatin in cancer pathogenesis using a simple small-molecule fluorescent probe, Sci Adv, 2022; 8: (mageewomens.org) 
   

For additional publications, visit Pubmed.