Principal Investigator (Contact): University of Puerto Rico / M.D. Anderson Cancer Center: Partnership for Excellence in Cancer Research.
Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus, San Juan, PR.
Email: brad.weiner@upr.edu
Complete list of biomedical publications: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Weiner+BR
Dr. Brad R. Weiner has been an active researcher in the Chemistry Department at the University of Puerto Rico – Río Piedras for over thirty years. Dr. Weiner is the author and/or co-author of over 150 peer-reviewed publications and 8 patents in the areas of molecular reaction dynamics, materials science and nanotechnology. His research group is now actively involved in biomedical applications of carbon and carbon-metal hybrid nanoscale materials. These applications include using the nanoparticles as anti-bacterial agents[1], anti-cancer treatments[2],[3],[4], active biosensors and MRI contrast agents[5],[6]. Dr. Weiner is currently serving as the Contact Principal Investigator for the “University of Puerto Rico / M.D. Anderson Cancer Center – Partnership for Excellence in Cancer Research”, which is funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health. This partnership, now in its 20th year, is dedicated to expanding the cancer research enterprise with special emphasis on infection-driven malignancies, and reaching NCI-designation for the UPRCCC. Dr. Weiner has dedicated more than 25 years as a research administrator to the development of Science and Technology in Puerto Rico. He has led islandwide efforts funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) U.S. Department of Energy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), U.S. Department of Education, and the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Weiner served as the Dean of the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras from 1999-2013. Dr. Weiner spent a sabbatical year away from academia in 2004, serving as the Director of the Division of Higher Education for NASA, based at Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Dr. Weiner received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry from Grinnell College in 1981, a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California – Davis in 1986, and served as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the Naval Research Laboratory prior to joining the faculty at the University of Puerto Rico in 1988.
[1] Habiba K, Bracho-Rincon DP, Gonzalez-Feliciano JA, Makarov VI, Ortiz D, Avalos JA, Gonzalez CI, Weiner BR, Morell G, Antibacterial Activity of Silver-Graphene Quantum Dots Nanocomposites against Gram-Positive and Gram-Negative Bacteria. Appl Mater Today 2015. 1; 80–87.
[2] Habiba K, Encarnacion-Rosado J, Garcia-Pabon K, Villalobos-Santos JC, Makarov VI, Avalos JA, Weiner BR, Morell G. Improving Cancer Therapy by Chemo-photothermal Combined Modalities Using Silver/Graphene Quantum Dots/Doxorubicin Nanoconjugates. Int J.of Nanomedicine 2016. 11;107–119
[3] Diaz-Diestra D, Thapa B, Badillo-Diaz D, Beltran-Huarac J, Morell G, Weiner BR, Graphene Oxide/ZnS:Mn Nanocomposite Functionalized with Folic Acid as a Nontoxic and Effective Theranostic Platform for Breast Cancer Treatment. Nanomaterials 2018. 8(7). PMID: 29966355, PMCID: PMC6071040
[4] Habiba K, Aziz K, Sanders K, Santiago CM, Kulumani Mahadevan LS, Makarov V, Weiner BR, Morell G, Krishnan S, Enhancing Colorectal Cancer Radiation Therapy Efficacy using Silver Nanoprisms Decorated with Graphene as Radiosensitizers. Scientific Reports 2019, 9: 17120.
[5] Thapa B, Diaz-Diestra D, Beltran-Huarac J, Weiner BR, Morell G, Enhanced MRI T2 Relaxivity in Contrast-Probed Anchor-free PEGylated Iron Oxide Nanoparticles. Nanoscale Res Lett 2017 12(1):312. PMID: 28454478, PMCID: PMC5407416
[6] Thapa B, Diaz-Diestra D, Badillo-Diaz D, Kumar Sharma R, Dasari K, Kumari S, Holcomb MB, Beltran-Huarac J, Weiner BR, Morell G, “Controlling the Transverse Proton Relaxivity of Magnetic Graphene Oxide”, Scientific Reports 2019, 9, Article number: 5633.
(Updated Feb 1, 2021)