Richard J. Price PhD

Richard J. Price, Ph.D., is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology & Medical Imaging at the University of Virginia. He is also the Research Director of the UVa Focused Ultrasound Center. He has been studying ultrasound-targeted drug and gene delivery for ~20 years. He was amongst the first investigators to observe that interactions between contrast agent microbubbles and ultrasound can be used to open endothelial barriers for targeted nanoparticle delivery.

Using these results as a platform, he determined how ultrasound parameters may be adjusted to optimize nanoparticle delivery, developed the approach as a means for stimulating collateral blood vessel growth in skeletal muscle, and demonstrated its utility as a means for achieving targeted skeletal muscle transfection. Within the past few years, he has begun transferring these concepts to brain applications. He has demonstrated that microbubble activation with focused ultrasound can be used to open the blood-brain barrier for effective “brain-penetrating” nanoparticle delivery. Recent studies entail using this approach to treat infiltrative gliomas and brain metastases, as well as for reversing neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s Disease.

Dr. Price is also studying how focused ultrasound can synergize with various immunotherapeutic approaches, with his research in this area supporting clinical trials combining focused ultrasound with immunotherapy for multiple cancer indications (NCT03237572 and NCT04116320). Dr. Price has received the Andrew J. Lockhart Memorial Award for Focused Ultrasound Cancer Research, the Jorge Heller Award for Outstanding Original Research Paper in the Journal of Controlled Release, and the Gerritsen Award for most highly cited review article from the Microcirculatory Society. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He has served as Associate Editor of the journal Microcirculation, on the Executive Council of the Microcirculatory Society, and on the ISTU Board of Directors. He has served on numerous NIH study sections and as a member of the NHLBI Board of Counselors.