Tymish Y. Ohulchanskyy, Ph.D.

Tymish Y. Ohulchanskyy holds his Ph.D. degree in optics and laser physics from the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv (Kyiv, Ukraine). He has joined the Institute for Lasers,Photonics and Biophotonics in September of 2001.

Dr. Ohulchanskyy’s expertise lies in the area of photophysics and physical chemistry of organic molecules and organic / metal / ceramic / semiconductor / hybrid nanostructures.

His research involves optical absorption and luminescence steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopy, confocal and two-photon laser scanning microscopy, luminescence microscopy and bioimaging in vitro and in vivo.

Current studies include but not limited to:

• Investigation of photophysical and photochemical properties of newly designed drugs and drug nanoformulations for photodynamic therapy (PDT).

  This project is being performed in collaboration with scientists from Roswell Park Cancer Institute (Dr. Pandey’s group), providing design and synthesis of drugs. The main aim of study is to get more efficient PDT drugs as well as agents for tumor imaging. The estimation of the efficiency of the investigated compounds as PDT drugs is done through study of photo and dark toxicity of cells in vitro and determination of a generation efficiency of singlet oxygen as main cytotoxic agent.

• Development of new nanoparticle systems for bioimaging and PDT.

  Different modifications of ceramic, polymeric, semiconductor, metal and hybrid nanoparticles are being investigated. Possible applications in PDT and/or multimodal imaging of cells and tissues are considered. Imaging agents for tumor imaging and targeted cancer therapy are developed.

Dr. Ohulchanskyy has published sixty articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and has obtained one USA patent; four patents are pending.