Silvia Jurisson recognized as AAAS Fellow for contributions to cancer research

University of Missouri-ColumbiaDec 11 2014

Silvia Jurisson recognized as an AAAS Fellow for contributions to cancer research

Nuclear medicine is the branch of medicine that uses radioactive materials to provide diagnostics and treatments for cancer. Often, standard protocols involve using radioactive isotopes developed to image as well as weaken cancer cells in the body. With more than 30 years of research in radiopharmaceutical chemistry, Silvia Jurisson, a researcher at the University of Missouri, is a world-renowned scientist who continues to develop breakthrough materials used in the detection and treatment of cancer.

For distinguished contributions to the field of radiopharmaceutical chemistry, and for establishing one of the top radiochemistry programs in the country, Jurisson has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers. This year, 401 members were awarded the honor by AAAS due to their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.

"The most rewarding thing to me is to follow my students through their educational and professional careers," Juirsson said. "I've mentored thirty doctoral and graduate students who have gone on to great success in academia and industry. Also, I currently have 13 graduate students I'm mentoring in my research group; I am honored to have been selected as an AAAS Fellow for my contributions to students, to my department and the University of Missouri."

More than 10,000 hospitals worldwide use radioisotopes in medicine, and about 90% of those procedures are for diagnosis, according to the World Nuclear Association. The most common radioisotope used in diagnosis is technetium-99m. Jurisson, professor of chemistry and radiology in the College of Arts and Science and a research investigator with MU Research Reactor (MURR), has spent decades studying this isotope and other isotopes for their medical usefulness. She is collaborating with medical and veterinary scientists at MU to develop biological targeting mechanisms that help send radiation to cancerous cells and organs.

"By themselves, none of the radioisotopes will go where you want them to in the body," Jurisson said. "Often cancer cells are in hard-to-reach places--in the nooks and crannies of the body--so we have to look for ways to deliver those radioisotopes specifically where we want them to go. Our lab works on the basic chemistry and methods used to create the radioisotopes working with scientists at (MURR). Then we collaborate with medical scientists on ways to get the isotopes where they can effectively image or kill cancer cells."

Through collaboration with cancer specialists at MU, Jurisson and her lab have developed a special outer shell or coating for radioisotopes containing a biological targeting moiety that binds with receptors attached to the cancer cell. Once the isotope is injected, the shell causes the isotope to effectively "seek out" and bind with the cancer cell delivering the isotope where it images or kills the cancer.

Jurisson holds a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of Delaware and a doctoral degree in inorganic chemistry from the University of Cincinnati. She was the 2012 recipient of the American Chemical Society's Glenn T. Seaborg Award in Nuclear Chemistry. She serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Society of Radiopharmaceutical Science and serves as an associate editor for the publications, Radiochimica Acta, Nuclear Medicine and Biology, and The Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry.