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Freddy E Escorcia, MD, PhD

Freddy E. Escorcia, M.D., Ph.D.

  • Center for Cancer Research
  • National Cancer Institute
Lasker Clinical Research Scholar
Molecular Imaging Branch
NIH Distinguished Scholar
Head, Laboratory of Molecular Radiotherapy

RESEARCH SUMMARY

Professional Mission

To improve that quality and quantity of life for patients with cancer

Laboratory of Molecular Radiotherapy Mission:

To design, engineer, and test targeted radiopharmaceuticals to diagnose and treat people with cancer

On Radiopharmaceutical Therapy:

Advances in engineering of tumor-specific molecules to guide cytotoxic treatments, such as chemotherapy or radionuclides, have resulted in new classes of cancer drugs which have the potential to kill tumors while mitigating toxicities to normal tissues, moving us closer to truly tumor-targeted, personalized cancer treatment for our patients.  Radiopharmaceutical therapy provides an orthogonal mode of cell killing that is distinct from, yet complementary to, existing small molecule and chemotherapy treatments. By developing targeted radiopharmaceuticals, our group aims to develop new agents to help us better treat and monitor patients with cancer.

Clinical:

Dr. Escorcia is a board-certified attending radiation oncologist within the Radiation Oncology Branch and the VA Medical Center in Baltimore and treats patients with all tumor types amenable to radiation therapy, including gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary malignancies.  He is fluent in Spanish and English.

Areas of Expertise

Radiation Oncology
Bioconjugate Chemistry
Radiopharmaceuticals
Gastrointestinal Cancers

Information for Patients

Learn more about our clinical trials and the highly specialized care teams that lead them. 

Clinical Trials

Publications

Selected Key Publications

Site-Specifically Conjugated Single-Domain Antibody Successfully Identifies Glypican-3–Expressing Liver Cancer by Immuno-PET

Stanley Fayn*, A. Paden King*1, Nicholas T. Gutsche, Zhijian Duan, Jesse Buffington, Colleen P. Olkowski, Ying Fu, Jessica Hong, Deepak Sail, Kwamena E. Baidoo, Rolf E. Swenson, Ross W. Cheloha, Mitchell Ho, Peter L. Choyke, and Freddy E. Escorcia
Journal of Nuclear Medicine. 2023.
Full-Text Article
[ Journal Article ]

225Ac-Macropatate: A Novel Alpha Particle Peptide Receptor Radionuclide Therapy for Neuroendocrine Tumors

A. Paden King, Nicholas T. Gutsche, Natarajan Raju, Stanley Fayn, Kwamena E. Baidoo, Meghan M. Bell, Colleen S. Olkowski, Rolf E. Swenson, Frank I. Lin, Samira M. Sadowski, Stephen S. Adler, Nikki A. Thiele, Justin J. Wilson, Peter L. Choyke and Freddy E. Escorcia
Journal of Nuclear Medicine. 2023.
Full-Text Article
[ Journal Article ]

Why bother with alpha particles?

A. Paden King, Frank I. Lin & Freddy E. Escorcia
Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2021.
Full-Text Article
[ Journal Article ]

Immuno-PET Detects Changes in Multi-RTK Tumor Cell Expression Levels in Response to Targeted Kinase Inhibition

Pereira, P. M. R.; Norfleet, J.; Lewis, J. S.; Escorcia, F. E.
J Nucl Med. 62 (3): 366–371, 2021.
Full-Text Article
[ Journal Article ]

Perspectives on metals-based radioimmunotherapy (RIT): moving forward

White JM, Escorcia FE, Viola NT.
Theranostics. 11(13): 6293-6314, 2021.
Full-Text Article
[ Journal Article ]

Job Vacancies

We have no open positions in our group at this time, please check back later.

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News

Apr 2023

Thanks to Dr. Willers Henning, Dr. Escorcia presents work from the lab to Mass General Radiation Oncology Department for Grand Rounds. Met many scientists and clinicians with interests in radiopharmaceuticals!

Dr. Escorcia visits Johns Hopkins Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences to discuss preclinical and clinical collaborations across the two institutions, with particular focus on GI malignancies.

Mar 2023

NIH/Oxford-Cambridge PhD Student, Stanley Fayn, has his first first author paper on using a GPC3-specific single domain antibody for immunoPET of liver cancer was published in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine!

Dr. Escorcia shares work from the lab helping to identify tumor-selective targets for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) at the European Society for Molecular Imaging (ESMI) European Molecular Imaging Meeting 2023 in Salzburg, Austria!

Nov 2022:

Postdoc fellow Dr. Paden King represents the lab as speaker for the Oak Ridge National Lab's workshop on Evolving Targeted Therapies for Cancer as part of the Accelerating Radiotherapeutic Innovations and Applications (ARIA) series.

Dr. Escorcia helps organize webinar series entitled  "Toward Systemic Brachytherapy: Incorporating Radiopharmaceuticals into your Practice Symposium"

Postdoc fellow Dr. Paden King's manuscript reporting on our novel alpha particle peptide receptor radionuclide therapy is accepted in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. 

Oct 2022:

Dr. Escorcia presents work from the lab at the Radiation Research Society in Kona, HI as part of the Theranostics session chaired by Dr. Carolyn Anderson.

Sept 2022:

Dr. Escorcia invited as Keynote Speaker at the Karmanos Cancer Institute of Wayne State University's Molecular Imaging Program Annual Retreat. 

Aug 2022: 

Dr. Escorcia discussion radiopharmeceutical therapy on Healthcare Unfiltered Podcast hosted by Dr. Chadi Nabhan along with ASTRO president elect and Chair of Radiation Oncology at Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. Jeff Michalski, and University of Chicago Chair of Radiation Oncology, Dr. Ralph Weichelbaum. 

Postbac Stan Fayn begins his PhD thesis work in our lab as an NIH-Oxford/Cambridge student and presents his work at the World Molecular Imaging Conference

Jul 2022:

Postbac Stan Fayn's poster on his work developing nanobody immunoPET for imaging of hepatocellular carcinoma was selected for the Gordon Research Conference Radionuclide Theranostics for the Management of Cancer

Postdoc Paden King's poster on his work developing novel SSTR-specific ligands for targeted alpha particle therapy of neuroendocrine tumors was selected for the Gordon Research Conference Radionuclide Theranostics for the Management of Cancer

Jun 2022

Proposal collaborating with Dr. Ross Cheloha and Dr. Mitchell Ho received NIH Director's Challenge Innovation Award! The project will create a fusion of two single domain antibodies (aka nanobodies): 1) Dr. Ho's anti-Glypican-3 nanobody and 2) Dr. Cheloha's novel self-labeling nanobody to yield a novel site-specific hepatocellular carcinoma-targeted imaging and/or therapeutic agent.