After Dr. Swartz left the Medical College of Wisconsin, Dr. James Hyde became the Director of the Research Resource. In 1988, the EPR Research Resource became part of the Molecular Biophysics Branch of the Biophysics Research Institute. Free radical research, especially the oxy radical research continued to be a strong component of the EPR Research Resource. Objectives Free radicals are implicated in a variety of diseases. Free Radical Research Center is to advance basic and clinical research in free radical medicated disease processes.
Free radicals are highly reactive species that are continuously produced in the body.
Oxygen is vital to human life, and provides energy needed to sustain all biological processes. In the early 1980's Dr. Albert Girotti of the Biochemistry Department formed an Active Oxygen Journal Club which had many interacting members from the EPR Research Resource. Thanks to a strong collaborative interaction between Biophysics, Biochemistry, and Pediatrics, a Program Project headed by Dr. Girotti to investigate the role of reactive oxygen species in phototherapy was initiated and later funded by the National Cancer Institute. In the early 1990's the free radical research focus shifted to nitric oxide. Increasingly it became clear that nitric oxide and oxy radical play a major role in many disease processes.