Brian D. Ross
University of Michigan, MI·Biomedical Engineering
Myelofibrosis is a slow-moving but ultimately fatal blood cancer. It starts in faulty blood-forming stem cells, gradually scars the bone marrow, and pushes blood production into the liver and spleen, which swell.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Medicine & Clinical Research
Pharmacology
- Topics
myelofibrosis
bone marrow
magnetic resonance imaging
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Nov 2029
What they work on
- Develop a multiparametric MRI signature of bone marrow disease in myelofibrosis mouse models by combining Dixon fat-fraction (PDFF), diffusion-weighted, and magnetization transfer imaging, which track marrow fat, cell density, and scar tissue.
- Apply parametric response mapping, a voxel-by-voxel image alignment method, to make MRI more sensitive to marrow disease and to changes after treatment.
- Evaluate new inhibitors of the MAPK and PI3K signaling pathways, including the dual-target compound LP-182, as myelofibrosis treatments in mice, using MRI to measure marrow response.
- Provide preclinical PET, MRI, CT, and optical imaging with study-design support to cancer researchers, so that imaging can move toward clinical companion diagnostics.
More about the research
Doctors currently judge whether treatment is working by measuring spleen size, which changes only after 6–12 months. The alternative is a painful bone marrow biopsy, which samples only one spot in the hip bone. Neither method shows how disease varies across the whole skeleton. This research aims to build a noninvasive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) readout of bone marrow disease and to pair it with new targeted drugs.
Why it matters
Patients with myelofibrosis currently depend on slow spleen measurements and painful single-site biopsies to track their disease. A whole-body MRI readout of the bone marrow could show sooner and more completely whether a drug is working. It could also serve as a companion diagnostic, a test used alongside a specific drug. Separately, inhibitors targeting the MAPK and PI3K pathways, such as LP-182, could offer treatment options beyond current JAK2 inhibitors, which rarely produce lasting remission.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
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The school
University of Michigan: 124 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 963 research doctorates a year.
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