.jpg "Adrian Lita, PhD photo")
Neuro-Oncology Branch, National Cancer Institute (NCI/NIH)
Bethesda, United States
Dr. Adrian Lita is a research fellow in the Cancer Metabolism Program of the Neuro-Oncology Branch interested in the development of Raman spectroscopy for application in glioma classification and their metabolic characterization. Dr. Lita and collaborators have developed methods for the quantification of proteins, lipids, RNA and DNA in each organelles of live cells. This approach led to the identification of unique alteration in lipid pathways of IDH1 mutated gliomas, that could be targeted therapeutically. In addition, Dr. Lita is developing assays to detect metabolites and drugs in cells and tissue utilizing this spectroscopic approach. More recently, Dr. Lita’s research has focused on combining Raman Spectroscopy of tissue from different types of gliomas with machine learning approaches in order to classify glioma samples according to their methylome. This method utilizes FFPE slides and could be applied to tissue samples banked, and for which the DNA methylation might not be available due to low quality of the DNA.