Dr. Reynolds grew up in El Paso, TX, received his BA in Biology from The University of Texas at Austin, his MD from UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, TX, his PhD (Cell Biology) from UT Austin, and his pediatrics training at the National Naval Medical Center. His postdoctoral fellowship was in cancer immunology at UT Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, TX. He is currently the Cancer Center Director for the School of Medicine, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (http://cancer.ttuhsc.edu), and is Director of the South Plains Oncology Consortium (SPOC; www.SPONC.org). Dr Reynolds’ research focuses on retinoids (drugs derived from vitamin A) in treating cancer, and he pioneered the development of the differentiating agent isotretinoin for treating the childhood cancer neuroblastoma, which is now world-wide standard of care. His phase III clinical trial design that demonstrated effectiveness of treating minimal residual disease after myeloablative therapy with isoretinoin has led to other successful phase III neuroblastoma studies, most recently adding anti-GD2 antibody and cytokines to isotretinoin to significantly improve survival in high-risk neuroblastoma. He discovered that neuroblastoma cells resistant to retinoic acid were highly sensitive to the cytotoxic retinoid fenretinide and he identified key mechanisms of action for fenretinide that have led to mechanistic-based drug combination clinical trials. He developed novel formulations that have enabled single agent fenretinide to achieve complete responses in early phase clinical trials of neuroblastoma and adult lymphomas, paving the way for planned phase II and III studies. Other research interests include mechanisms of drug resistance and drugs to modulate resistance in childhood and adult cancers, development of novel preclinical testing models and systems for cancer drug development, and clinical trials testing novel therapeutic approaches for cancer, especially neuroblastoma, lymphomas, and ovarian cancer. Dr. Reynolds is a member of the steering committee for neuroblastoma of the Children's Oncology Group (COG). He is a special government employee with the FDA and a founding member of the Pediatric Subcommittee of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee for the FDA. He is a member of the Advisory Committee on Childhood Cancer for the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. He is a member of the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act prioritization panel for the National Institute for Child Health and Development. Honors received include the 2004 Eurand Prize, 2008 Advances in Neuroblastoma Research Best Clinical Paper, the most cited paper in Clinical Cancer Research in 2009, the Texas Tech University System 2011 Chancellor's Council Distinguished Research Award, The Covenant Health Systems David R. Close, MD Endowed Chair in Oncology, and Distinguished University Professor. Dr. Reynolds sponsors multiple FDA Investigational New Drug (IND) applications and has active grant support from the National Cancer Institute (NCI),the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), and the Department of Defense. The ALSF/COG Childhood Cancer Repository (www.CCCells.org) is a Children’s Oncology Group (COG) national resource laboratory under his direction at Texas Tech. Dr. Reynolds is an author or co-author of more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers (H Index = 74) and is a member of editorial boards for Clinical Cancer Research and Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. His avocations include film making and special effects, playing guitar, and writing music. He also enjoys competitive shooting and he was the team physician for the 1992 USA Olympic shooting team in Barcelona.
Languages
- Spanish
Interests
- Cancer
- Drugs
- Leukemia
- Lung cancer
- Oncology
- Ovarian cancer
- Pediatrics
- Pharmacology