Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology Training Program
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

Aaron LeBeau, PhD

Position title: Associate Professor, Department of Pathology and Lab Medicine, Department of Radiology

Email: aaron.lebeau@wisc.edu

Aaron LeBeau

Research Description

The LeBeau laboratory operates at the interface of sytnthetic biology and nuclear medicine. Our goal is to develop novel antibody-based molecular imaging agents and targeted therapeutics for metastatic prostate cancer. Our laboratory specializes in antibody phage display. This technique allows us to rapidly identify antibody fragments against cancer-associated antigens using our in-house human and mouse antibody libraries. When coupled to radioisotopes, our antibodies are employed as positron-emission tomography (PET) and single-emission computed tomography (SPECT) nuclear imaging agents and as radioimmunotherapy agents. We have also developed non-human single-domain antibody libraries from naïve camelids and nurse sharks. We are pioneering the use camelid and shark antibodies as next-generation antibody-drug conjugates in oncology. In additon to our work in cancer, we have active projects developing non-canonical neutralzing antibodies for beta-coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2.

Selected Publications

  •  Hintz HM, Gallant JP, Vander Griend DJ, Coleman IM, Nelson PS, LeBeau AM. “Imaging fibroblast activation protein alpha improves the diagnosis of metastatic prostate cancer with positron emission tomography. Clinical Cancer Research. 2020. 15(18): 4882-4891.
  • Glumac PM, Gallant JP, Shapovalova M, Li Y, Murugan P, Gupta S, Nelson PE, Dehm SM, LeBeau AM. “Exploitation of CD133 for the targeted imaging of prostate cancer.” Clinical Cancer Research. 2020. 26(5): 1054-1064.
  • Shapovalova M, Lee JK, Nelson P, Coleman I, Dehm SM, Vander Griend DJ, LeBeau AM.         “PEG10 promoter-driven expression of reporter gene enables molecular imaging of lethal prostate cancer.” Cancer Research. 2019. 79 (21): 5668-5680.
  • Hintz HM, Cowan AE, Shapovalova M, LeBeau AM. “The development of a cross-reactive antibody for targeting the tumor stroma.” Bioconjugate Chemistry. 2019. 30(5): 1466-1476.
  • Shapovalova M, Davydova J, Henzler C, Daniel M, Dehm SM, Warlick CA, LeBeau AM. “Exploiting the transcriptional specificity of the alpha-methyl-CoA racemase AMACR promoter for the molecular imaging of prostate cancer.” Oncotarget. 2018. 9(90):36693-36704.