Office 
(631)  444-7779

Email 
Basil.Rigas@stonybrookmedicine.edu

Stony Brook University
Department of Family, Population
and Preventive Medicine 
Health Science Center T17, Room 080 
Stony Brook, NY 11794-8175

Research Program

Lipid Signaling and Metabolism in Cancer

Department

Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine

Research Interest

Dr. Rigas has spent the last two decades working on the mechanisms of carcinogenesis and cancer control with pharmacological agents.
Highlights of his work:

• Demonstration of the increased PGE2 levels in human colon cancer
• First delineation of the cytokinetic effect of NSAIDs and eicosanoids in cancer
• First description of the COX-independence of the anticancer effect of NSAIDs, a concept now expanded to many anticancer agents
• Proposing and establishing that oxidative stress mediates the anticancer effect of modified NSAIDs
• Discovering that annexin A1 is an endogenous regulator of NF-κB and designing novel annexin-based peptides with anticancer and other effects

In addition, Dr. Rigas

• Invented a platform technology for the chemical modification of existing compounds generating new chemical entities with enhanced potency and safety
• Studied extensively the nitric oxide-donating NSAIDs, including efficacy, PK/PD, metabolism, toxicology studies and conducted an FDA-approved, NIH-funded clinical trial
• Obtained the first ever infrared spectra from cells and tissues and co-invented infrared microscopy
• Co-invented the RecA-based method for screening DNA libraries; a commercially available kit based on this method was used extensively for two decades

Education

MD, Athens University Medical School, Greece, 1972 
DSc, Athens University Medical School, Greece, 1975
Resident, Brown University, Providence, RI. 1977 
Postdoctoral Fellow, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, 1983
Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 1986

Publications

A complete list of publications can be found HERE.