Northwest Ohio Cancer Research Institute

Director: Srinivas Vinod Saladi, Ph.D.

The BioRepository Core serves as a centralized resource for the collection, processing, storage, and distribution of high-quality biological specimens and associated clinical data to support cancer research across the University of Toledo. This Core will facilitate the acquisition of tumor tissues, blood samples, and other biospecimens from both retrospective and prospective collections, with appropriate consent and regulatory oversight. By providing well-annotated biospecimens linked to clinical outcomes, the BioRepository Core will enable investigators to conduct cutting-edge studies in tumor biology, biomarker discovery, and translational research.

Director: Jasmine Liu, Ph.D.

The Structural Biology and AI-Driven Drug Discovery Core will provide service, expertise and infrastructure to accelerate determination of biological macromolecules structure using biophysical methods, computational and AI approaches. In parallel, it will support the identification and optimization of novel anti-cancer therapeutics using state-of-the-art AI-driven drug discovery methods. By leveraging advanced tools in artificial intelligence, machine learning, molecular modeling, cheminformatics, and structural biology, this Core will enable investigators to analyze large-scale datasets, predict drug-target interactions, prioritize hit compounds, and optimize therapeutic candidates. This Core will support both hypothesis-driven and data-driven discovery efforts, fostering collaborations between basic scientists, computational biologists, medicinal chemists, and clinical researchers.

Director: Tim Cui, Ph.D.

The Medicinal Chemistry Core will provide comprehensive, cancer-focused medicinal chemistry expertise and infrastructure to accelerate the discovery and development of novel anti-cancer therapeutics. This Core offers end-to-end assistance in (1) molecular design, synthetic route development, and custom synthesis of small molecules, chemical probes, and mid-sized molecules; and (2) hit validation, lead optimization, systematic structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies, scale-up synthesis, and complete analytical characterization.

Director: Xiaohong Li, Ph.D.

The In-Vivo Therapeutics Core will provide services for animal breeding and testing of cancer drug candidates using both xenograft and genetically-engineered animal models. This Core will support in-vivo efficacy studies, pharmacokinetics, toxicity assessments, and biomarker analyses to facilitate preclinical validation of novel therapeutics. By offering centralized expertise and infrastructure, the core will streamline in-vivo experimentation and enhance the translational potential of cancer drug discovery projects across the university.