People

Associate Professor
Assistant Director of the TRUST Program
Department of Radiology, UT Southwestern
D1.204, 214-648-5093​
Email

Dr. Jacques Lux obtained his doctorate in chemistry at the University of Strasbourg under the guidance of the 2016 Nobel laureate in chemistry Prof. Jean-Pierre Sauvage. His doctoral projects aimed at designing and developing synthetic molecular machines reminiscent of biological systems. Dr. Lux conducted postdoctoral research at the faculty of pharmacy in Strasbourg, where he developed activatable optical probes for the detection of viral RNA. He then came to the U.S. to train in supramolecular chemistry in Prof. Julius Rebek Jr.’s laboratory at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Dr. Lux did additional postdoctoral research at the University of California-San Diego, applying his skills in organic and coordination chemistry to the field of material science, before becoming a Research Scientist to develop and translate theranostics for imaging and drug delivery.​

While at UCSD, he designed and synthetized a novel MR contrast agent that incorporated gadolinium that was chelated and linked to hydrogel nanoparticles (nanogels). The advantage of this strategy is not only the development of high relaxivity T1 agents, but also minimizing demetallation. The versatility of this platform was demonstrated by incorporating 64Cu instead of gadolinium that allowed for in vivo PET/CT imaging of cancer. Dr. Lux also participated in the development of novel activatable optical nanoprobes for the detection of inflammation.​

In 2015, Dr. Lux joined the newly established Translational Research in Ultrasound Theranostics (TRUST) Program at UT Southwestern in the Department of Radiology, which focuses on the development of targeted and activatable ultrasound agents that not only aid in cancer detection, but also under ultrasound control, release drugs and/or destroy tumors with high-intensity focused ultrasound. Dr. Lux became Assistant Director of the TRUST program in 2017 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2022.

In November 2017, Dr. Lux received the 2017 Docstars Award by The Cary Council in recognition and support of promising early-stage research.

Dr. Lux’s research focuses on the development of nanomaterials for the treatment of cancer as well as targeted and activatable ultrasound contrast agents to improve effective diagnostic and therapeutic options in cancer and other diseases. Dr. Lux has developed a thrombin-sensitive microbubble (MB) ultrasound contrast agent that has the potential of recognizing acute from chronic thrombosis by becoming adherent to blood clots when exposed to thrombin associated with active clotting (Lux et al., ACS AMI, 2017). Recently, Dr. Lux developed MBs coated with a polysaccharide-based hydrogel that become acoustically active when exposed to acidic pH (Burns et al., ACS AMI, 2020).

Dr. Lux is am now taking advantage of the large surface area of a branched polysaccharide (dextran) modified with cationic molecules (spermine) to develop polymer-conjugated MBs that maximize both nucleotide packing and targeting antibody conjugation on the MB surface. Importantly, these MBs strongly bind small nucleotide molecules such as the cyclic dinucleotide STING agonist cGAMP.

Dr. Lux has joined forces with Wen Jiang, MD, PhD, a cancer immunologist, to demonstrate that these immunomodulating MBs, which target antigen presenting cells (APCs) activate STING in APCs when exposed to ultrasound. Using a preclinical sonoporator, potent anti-tumor responses were generated in both primary and metastatic breast cancer models in mice (Li et al., Nat. Nanotechnol., 2022).