Faculty

Bio

Dr. Alaei is Professor and Director of Medical Physics, and the Director of Medical Physics Graduate Program at the University of Minnesota. He received his MS degree from the University of Florida in 1992 and his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 2000. He has been a faculty member at the University of Minnesota since 2001.

Research Summary

Dr. Alaei's research in recent years has focused on the calculation of imaging dose from kilovoltage CBCT imaging, as well as other topics related to Image Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT). He has also been involved in research in orthovoltage dosimetry and other radiation therapy physics and dosimetry topics. He is an associate editor for Medical Physics and Physica Medica, and a member of AAPM Task Groups 180 and 319. He was co-director of the 2018 AAPM Summer School on IGRT and co-editor of the Summer School Proceedings: "Image Guidance in Radiation Therapy: Techniques, Accuracy, and Limitations".

Clinical Summary

Dr. Alaei's clinical specialties are treatment planning and quality assurance, Image Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT), and kilovoltage and orthovoltage dosimetry and QA.

Clinical Summary

Dr. Cho's clinical specialties include thoracic neoplasms, urologic cancers, stereotactic radiotherapy, and upper gastrointestinal cancers.

Clinical Summary

Pediatric Malignancies; Gynecologic Malignancies; Central Nervous System Cancers; Gamma Knife Treatment; Radiation for Benign Conditions; Eye Plaque Treatment for Ocular Melanoma; High Dose Rate Brachytherapy

Clinical Summary

Tumor Motion Management; 4d Imaging Modalities; Pediatric Radiation Oncology; Small Field Dosimetry; 3D Printing Applications in Radiation Oncology.

Clinical Summary

Dr. Ester's clinical interests include adult oncology, head and neck cancers, lung cancer, esophageal and other GI cancers, breast cancer, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, CNS cancer, and lymphoma.

Bio

Dr. Ferreira has clinical interests in Brachytherapy treatments for skin, uveal melanomas, and brain tumors. She has a special interest in developing personalized radiation therapy approaches to cancer treatment. Most recently, she was part of a multi-disciplinary team who was the first in the U.S. to offer the clinical use of GammaTile brachytherapy outside of a clinical trial. Her research focuses on finding solutions to improve Brachytherapy treatments and to find treatments that have the potential to improve clinical outcomes.Dr. Ferreira is an Assistant Professor and Medical Physicist in the Department of Radiation Oncology. She received her Doctoral degree in Medical Physics from East Carolina University, and completed her residency training at the University of Oklahoma. In addition to lecturing graduate students and radiation oncology medical residents, Dr. Ferreira provides mentoring to students who want to gain experience both in the clinical and scientific realms.

Research Summary

Eye Plaque Brachytherapy GammaTile Permanent Brachytherapy for brain tumors Superficial Brachytherapy for skin cancer MRI guided Brachytherapy Customized high-dose-rate Brachytherapy devices

Clinical Summary

Dr. Ferreira is specialized in Brachytherapy treatments for skin cancer, ocular melanoma, and brain tumors. She has a special interest in developing personalized radiation therapy approaches to cancer treatment with external beam radiation, Gamma Knife stereotactic radiosurgery, and brachytherapy modalities. Her research focuses on finding solutions to improve Brachytherapy treatments and to find treatments that have the potential to improve clinical outcomes.

Clinical Summary

Brachytherapy

Bio

Aika Shoo, MD, is a radiation oncologist who provides care for several types of cancer, including breast, skin, lung and gastrointestinal. Dr. Shoo sees patients at University of Minnesota Physicians Radiation Therapy Center and at University of Minnesota Health Maple Grove Clinics Cancer Center and Infusion Services in Radiation Oncology. In addition, she is an Adjunct Assistant Professor with the Department of Radiation Oncology for the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Clinical Summary

Dr. Shoo's clinical interests include short-course radiotherapy treatments, SRS/SBRT, and global healthcare.

Bio

Dr. Sloan is an Assistant Professor, Medical Student Director and Co-lead of the Department Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee  in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Minnesota, and is a Masonic Scholar with the Masonic Cancer Center. Her clinical practice specializes in the treatment of tumors of the brain (primary brain tumors and brain metastases) with radiotherapy.

Dr. Sloan completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. After completing the MD/PhD Program at The Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University and her residency in Radiation Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she was mentored by Dr. Lawrence Kleinberg, Dr. Sudipto Ganguly, and Dr. Drew Pardoll, Dr. Sloan was recruited to the University of Minnesota’s Department of Radiation Oncology in 2020. In 2021, she was appointed the co-lead of the Department of Radiation Oncology Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, and in 2023, she was appointed as the Medical Student Director for the Department of Radiation Oncology. Also in 2023, she became an Executive Committee Member of the Brain Tumor Program at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Sloan became a member of both the NRG Oncology Brain Tumor General Committee and the NRG Oncology Radiation Oncology Committee in 2024.

Dr. Sloan’s primary area of research is the systemic effect of cancer therapy. As a physician-scientist, she leads a translational research laboratory within the University of Minnesota Brain Tumor Program (UMBTP), focused on understanding the role of myeloid cells in primary brain tumors. Dr. Sloan is particularly interested in the impact of radiotherapy on deleterious peripheral blood myeloid cell populations in patients with brain tumors. The overall goal of her translational science program is to personalize radiation therapy based on systemic immune biomarkers. Dr. Sloan is the Principal Investigator (PI) of multiple interventional and observational clinical trials.

Clinical Summary

Radiation oncology; Brain tumors; Brain metastases

Bio

Sumit Sood, MD, is a radiation oncologist who treats adult patients with breast, lung and prostate cancer. Dr. Sood sees patients at the University of Minnesota Physicians Radiation Therapy Center in Radiation Oncology and prides himself on treating every patient like they are a part of his family. In addition, Dr. Sood is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Clinical Summary

He has a clinical interest in stereotactic body radiotherapy.

Bio

Dr. Terezakis focuses her clinical practice on pediatric cancers, hematologic malignancies including lymphoma, as well as musculoskeletal tumors. Her clinical and translational research incorporates advanced diagnostic radiology techniques into the radiation treatment planning of cancers to minimize long-term side effects and improve efficacy of treatment. She is also an active investigator of stereotactic body radiation therapy techniques in pediatric and adult tumors. Dr. Terezakis is a leader within the Children's Oncology Group (COG) that develops and runs national clinical trials for children with cancer as well as multiple national committees that establish the standard of care for cancer treatment.

Clinical Summary

Pediatric cancers; Hematologic malignancies; Bone and soft tissue sarcomas; Stereotactic body radiotherapy

Research Summary

The goal of our laboratory is to advance the field of cancer by genetically engineering and testing new biological drugs against chemotherapy refractory cancer. These new drugs kill by a mechanism entirely different than chemotherapy. We believe that we are in a unique position to address some of the most pressing issues including the engagement of the innate immune system to kill cancer. A new genre of drugs show that cancer metastasis can effectively be combated by engaging the immune system to selectively kill tumors. We developed a new drug platform that works extremely well in recruiting NK cells to kill leukemia cells. In addition to my conventional laboratory, I am fortunate to have a cGMP laboratory that manufactures FDA compliant drugs for phase 1 testing. We published our first clinical trial with one of these drugs in Clinical Cancer Research. We have an accomplished team of experts that can help this integrated effort succeed. Our laboratory has an established track-record in animal models and I have a background in immunology, experimental therapeutics, molecular biology, radiation oncology, and gene therapy that has served us well. Over the last 35 years, I have built my career and reputation on cell selective drug targeting and am recognized as a major contributor to the field. My immunology and molecular biology background has served me well and my team has published over a hundred and eighty PubMed papers. Our success in translational research is evidenced by our bringing targeted drugs to phase 1 clinical trial. The most recent targeted toxin will now enter phase 2 testing. We currently have active INDs and are treating patients at the University of Minnesota Cancer Center. I have a demonstrated a record of successful and productive research projects in an area of translational, biological drug development and serve as inventor on several patents held by the University of Minnesota.

Our laboratory specializes in the design and development of new anti-cancer biologic agents with the goal of getting them into the clinic as quickly as possible. Typically, new hybrid proteins are synthesized by combining genes encoding cancer cell binding domains with genes encoding molecules that deliver death signals. The resulting proteins selectively bind to cancer cells, internalize the death signal, and kill the cancer cells. Thus, they provide cancer specific therapy in a manner that chemotherapeutic agents cannot. These new anti-cancer agents are primarily directed to overexpressed signal markers on the surface of cancer cells and we have successfully produced promising fusion proteins that can kill brain tumors, breast cancer, leukemia, and cells causing organ rejection. In order to facilitate the delivery of these agents at the site of the tumor, another approach under study uses gene therapy. We are fashioning retroviruses containing our target genes and using them to infect tumor reactive T cells. The T cells have the ability to migrate to tumor and secrete the anti-cancer molecule at site where they can have the greatest effect. Another facet of our work focuses on the use of targeting powerful beta irradiation-emitting radionuclides, to cancer cells. Certain isotopes can be conjugated to cancer cell binding antibodies in such a way that they can selectively bind to tumors and cause their regression. In this instance, internalization of these molecules into cells are unnecessary. The cross-fire effect is potent enough to destroy even large tumors and the side effects seem tolerable. Through the design and production of these new molecules we hope to not only devise urgently needed alternative cancer therapies, but to further our understanding of the intricacies of protein engineering.

Clinical Summary

Transplantation, cancer, leukemia, molecular therapeutics, gene therapy