Benoit Driesschaert, Ph.D.

  Dr. Driesschaert earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) Belgium and received his postdoctoral training at the Ohio State University, Ohio. In 2017 Dr. Driesschaert was awarded an NIH K99/R00 Pathway to independence grant from the NIH/NIBIB to launch his own research programs. He is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, at West Virginia University.

The sphere of interest:

   Research in the laboratory is focused on the development and applications of probes for medical imaging. Specifically, the lab is developing advanced paramagnetic probes that enable in vivo measurement of physiologically relevant parameters, such as enzyme activities, oxygen concentration, or pH non-invasively using magnetic resonance-based techniques (EPR/NMR) in strong collaboration with other members of the IMMR center.

Personal website: https://immr-probes.com/

Selected publications:

• Poncelet M, Driesschaert B. A ¹³C-Labeled Triarylmethyl Radical as an EPR Spin Probe Highly Sensitive to Molecular Tumbling. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2020 Jun 15. doi: 10.1002/anie.202006591.

• Sanzhaeva U, Poncelet M, Tseytlin O, Tseytlin M, Gencheva M, Eubank TD, Khramtsov VV, Driesschaert B. Synthesis, Characterization, and Application of a Highly Hydrophilic Triarylmethyl Radical for Biomedical EPR. J Org Chem. 2020 Aug 21;85(16):10388-10398.

• Poncelet M, Huffman JL, Khramtsov VV, Dhimitruka I, Driesschaert B. Synthesis of hydroxyethyl tetrathiatriarylmethyl radicals OX063 and OX071. RSC Adv. 2019;9(60):35073-35076.

• Sanzhaeva U, Xu X, Guggilapu P, Tseytlin M, Khramtsov VV, Driesschaert B. Imaging of Enzyme Activity by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance: Concept and Experiment Using a Paramagnetic Substrate of Alkaline Phosphatase, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, 57, 11701-11705.

          Check out the video abstract : https://vimeo.com/292981331?ref=tw-share