Usama’s research focuses on triple-negative breast cancer, an exceptionally aggressive subtype that constitutes roughly 15% to 20% of all breast cancer cases. The phrase “triple-negative” refers to the absence of the three receptors typically found on breast cancer cells: estrogen, progesterone and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, or HER2. Because these receptors are the targets that many breast cancer therapies and hormone treatments latch onto, triple-negative breast cancer is resistant to many first-line treatments. “Surgical resection is the primary intervention for more than half of all cancer patients every year,” Usama said. “But when you are dealing with a subtype as aggressive as triple-negative breast cancer, relying solely on a surgeon’s sight and touch to clear the tumor margins is a major clinical challenge.”

Fluorescence-guided surgery is an emerging approach in which patients are injected with fluorophores, targeted fluorescent dyes, prior to an operation. During surgery, specialized near-infrared lasers illuminate these dyes, giving the medical team a glowing blueprint of the tumor and its borders. Unfortunately, today’s fluorescent dyes also need to bind to the three receptors that triple-negative breast cancer lacks, leaving surgeons without a reliable optical map for this subtype. Rather than searching for markers on the outside of the cell, Usama’s laboratory is targeting proteins inside the cells that help fuel tumor growth from within. These proteins are known as cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6, or CDK4/6. While normal cells keep these proteins relatively controlled, most triple-negative breast cancer tumors produce much more of them.

To reach these cells, the researchers are pairing an FDA-approved drug called palbociclib, which naturally binds to CDK4/6, with a deep-tissue-penetrating near-infrared fluorogenic dye called cyclizing heptamethine cyanine, or c-Cy7, which Usama developed. Working in tandem, the two compounds form a “smart probe” called c-Cy7-pal. What sets this probe apart is its activation mechanism. Conventional imaging dyes are “always on,” glowing continuously from the moment they are injected, which creates background noise because the dye pools in healthy tissues and makes it hard for surgeons to see the edges of the tumor. Usama’s engineered probe instead acts like an intelligent warning light, illuminating cancerous tissue and going dark elsewhere.

“Our c-Cy7-pal probe only activates and illuminates after binding to the specific intracellular proteins overexpressed in the tumor,” Usama explained. “This gives us dramatically higher target-to-background contrast, making a clear distinction between tumor and healthy tissue.” The switch-flipping is triggered by changes in the target area’s internal chemistry, specifically how water-repelling or electrically charged the surrounding environment is. While traveling through healthy tissue, the probe naturally twists into a closed, dark state. When the probe penetrates a cancer cell and locks onto the targeted CDK4/6 protein, the shift in polarity coaxes the molecule to snap open into a charged state, switching on its fluorescence. Because the probe is still in development, its performance in patients has not yet been demonstrated; the Voelcker Fund award is intended to move the technology into translational models that could test whether the approach can reshape the surgical oncology landscape.

The project is also part of UT San Antonio’s broader mission to cultivate an agile STEM workforce in South Texas. With support from the Voelcker Fund Young Investigator Award, Usama has recruited and trained five PhD students and 12 undergraduate students in chemistry, biochemistry, biology and biomedical engineering. He has redesigned junior-level biochemistry coursework and launched a specialized graduate-level chemical biology course to expand student access to hands-on laboratory training in molecular design, drug development and bioimaging. “Our students aren’t just reading about these concepts — they are actively synthesizing the probes, running the biological assays and learning how to communicate complex science,” Usama said. “To see their growth has been tremendous; they are the medical and scientific leaders of the future.”

Subject of Research: Fluorescence-guided surgery and molecular probe development for triple-negative breast cancer

Article Title: Chemist develops probe to illuminate breast cancer cells at UT San Antonio

Article References: Chemist develops probe to illuminate breast cancer cells at UT San Antonio. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: fluorescence-guided surgery, triple-negative breast cancer, CDK4/6, molecular probe, palbociclib, chemical biology, surgical oncology, UT San Antonio, Chemist, develops, probe, illuminate

The change is significant because of how most dental schools sequence their teaching. Institutions that do provide complete digital workflows typically do not introduce them until the third or fourth year of training, once students have already spent years on conventional techniques. Until this year, students at UT San Antonio followed the same pattern, encountering digital tools only later in the program while their early years relied on analog methods such as taking putty-tray impressions and using a facebow to record patient jaw relationships. Now both digital and analog methods remain in the curriculum, but students master the two approaches side by side from the very start of their studies.

To support the initiative, this year’s 100 incoming dental students each received dental articulators, devices that reproduce the way an individual patient’s jaw opens, closes and slides, along with software that links the articulators to the same workflow the students will use on patients two years later at the school’s clinic. The school also upgraded and expanded its fleet of intraoral scanners, the handheld devices that capture precise three-dimensional images of the teeth and soft tissues, adding 16 units to the clinic floor. All of the new equipment ties into the same Amann Girrbach system, so there is no gap between the technology students learn on and the technology they eventually use clinically.

Raul Jose Bonilla, a clinical assistant professor and director of dental anatomy with the Department of Predoctoral Dental Education, is spearheading the effort. “What it really shows is that we’re on the cutting edge,” he said, adding that the school has always aimed to progress not only itself but the profession. Diane J. Sullivan, professor and chair of the department, framed the adoption in educational terms: “As the academic home where future dentists begin their journey, we cultivate an environment centered on evidence-based science, excellence in dental education and compassionate patient care.” She described the adoption of advanced technologies such as the complete digitized workflow as one more way the school grows skilled clinicians and leaders in oral health.

The workflow itself follows a defined technical sequence. It begins when a student scans the patient’s teeth and soft tissues with an intraoral scanner, and the scanning software converts those images in real time into an interactive surface model displayed on a chairside monitor. A high-precision jaw motion sensor, worn on a lightweight head frame, then tracks and records the patient’s individualized jaw movements. That motion data works in tandem with the patient’s scans inside prosthetic design software, where the restoration is designed against the patient’s own anatomy and bite rather than a generic template.

Once the design is complete, it is sent to one of the school’s in-house milling machines, which produces the finished crown or bridge. A 3D printer can also produce provisional restorations as well as resin models of the patient’s mouth. Those printed models snap onto the dental articulator, where they serve a dual purpose: they act as a teaching tool for students and as a method of verifying restorative work before the final prosthetic is tried at the chairside. The result is a closed loop in which the digital design, the physical model and the eventual restoration all derive from the same source data.

Bonilla emphasizes that this integration matters most for establishing clinically relevant, hands-on exercises. Because every student works from an identical digital file, longstanding sources of variability disappear, including articulator mounting discrepancies, facebow transfer inconsistency and differences between individual operators. A single digitally designed exercise can be printed in multiples and used identically across operative, fixed and removable prosthodontics courses, giving every student in a cohort the same reference point from the first year onward. That standardization is difficult or impossible to achieve with purely analog techniques, where each impression and mounting introduces its own error.

The pedagogical payoff, according to the school, is that students master the complete workflow well before they treat patients. They enter the clinic already fluent in how scan quality, articulator settings, design parameters and milling or printing interact and integrate. A student can assess an intraoral scan, recognize potential problems, make modifications and communicate precise adjustments to the milling center. The practical results described by the school are fewer remakes, shorter chair times and restorations that more accurately preserve and replicate each patient’s existing anatomy.

The installation is the product of a relationship built over several years. Richard Zimmermann, a clinical associate professor with the Department of Predoctoral Dental Education, is credited with originating the relationship with Amann Girrbach. Through his initiative and focus on research and development, the school became a secondary, or beta, tester of the company’s latest milling machine at the time, and it has since purchased two additional milling machines from the manufacturer. All three machines are used as part of the full workflow. A recent presentation on the system by company representatives drew faculty from across the school, from adjuncts teaching first-year dental anatomy to prosthodontists who specialize in complex oral reconstruction and cosmetic dentistry. “For each one of our clinical teams and restorative courses, the team leads were there, and the assistant leads were there,” Bonilla said, describing faculty members learning the system and asking how they could begin using it.

Faculty reactions capture how quickly the technology has moved. Tom Watkins, a long-serving clinical professor and local practitioner who graduated from the school in 1980 and now teaches part time, said students now leave prepared to work digitally as well as the old-fashioned way. “It’s come a long way,” he said. “It’s just phenomenal what we can do, and it really makes dentistry so much more fun.” Carlos David Escobar Palma, director of digital dentistry and clinical assistant professor at the school, added that access to state-of-the-art hardware and software is transforming how students are taught and prepared, creating opportunities for faculty professional development and, in his words, allowing the school to provide patients with an even higher level of care. The School of Dentistry, ranked the number one dental school in Texas by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research, offers 18 degrees and programs in dentistry and dental hygiene, and its clinical practice, UT Dentistry, operates in the Center for Oral Health Care and Research serving the general population.

Subject of Research: Integration of a complete digital dental restoration workflow into all four years of a dental school curriculum

Article Title: UT San Antonio School of Dentistry now prepping students from Day 1 with a complete digital workflow for teaching, performing dental restorations

Article References: UT San Antonio School of Dentistry now prepping students from Day 1 with a complete digital workflow for teaching, performing dental restorations. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: digital dentistry, dental education, intraoral scanning, CAD/CAM milling, dental restorations, Amann Girrbach, UT San Antonio, prosthodontics, 3D printing, dental articulators, DDS program, Antonio