TTUHSC Cancer Researcher Honored by National Academy of Inventors

Class of Fellows considered highest professional distinction awarded solely to inventors

• By Mark Hendricks & Kathryn Dankesreiter
• December 17, 2025
• Research

C. Patrick Reynolds, M.D., Ph.D., director of the School of Medicine Pediatric Cancer Research Center at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC), has dedicated his life as a researcher to developing treatments for childhood cancers, including neuroblastoma, the most common cancer outside of the brain in infants and young children that is very aggressive and fatal for many children.

To recognize the career of contributions he has made to help these young patients, the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) named Reynolds to its 2025 Class of Fellows, considered to be the highest professional distinction awarded solely to inventors. He will be inducted June 4 during the NAI’s 15th Annual Conference in Los Angeles.

The NAI is a member organization comprising U.S. and international universities and governmental and non-profit research institutes spanning more than 260 institutions worldwide. The 2025 Class of Fellows is comprised of 169 emerging inventors representing 127 NAI Member Institutions, including universities, government agencies and research institutions from 40 states.

TTUHSC Executive Vice President for Research and Innovation Lance R. McMahon, Ph.D., said Reynolds exemplifies the very best of translational science, transforming discoveries at the bench into life-saving treatments for cancer patients.

“His prolific scholarship, dedicated mentorship and unwavering commitment to advancing care have left an indelible mark on both the scientific community and the lives of those he serves,” McMahon said. “This honor is a truly fitting recognition of his extraordinary impact.” 

A co-inventor on multiple issued and pending patents, Reynolds, a TTUHSC professor of pediatrics, medicine and cell biology and biochemistry, was a pioneer in developing isotretinoin, a differentiating agent for treating neuroblastoma. His research currently focuses on using telomere maintenance mechanisms as cancer biomarkers for neuroblastoma and other cancers and developing agents to specifically target alternative lengthening of telomere cancers.

He also studies mechanisms of resistance to drugs and antibody therapy in childhood and adult cancers, biobanking human cancers and developing novel preclinical testing systems for cancer drug development.

Reynolds’ laboratory serves as the Childhood Cancer Repository for the Children’s Oncology Group, powered by Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. The repository provides researchers worldwide (30 countries) with access to patient-derived cancer models that accelerate drug development and testing.

Reynolds, a member of the neuroblastoma steering committee for the Children’s Oncology Group, also was a special government employee with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for 20 years and a founding member of the FDA’s Pediatric Subcommittee of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee. He is a founding member of the Advisory Committee on Childhood Cancer and the Clinical Trials Committee and the Clinical Trials Advisory Committee for the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT).

As a TTUHSC Distinguished University Professor, Reynolds also has served on and chaired multiple National Institutes of Health (NIH) and U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) study sections, and he is a member of the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act - Pediatric Oncology Working Group for the National Institute for Child Health and Development. Other significant honors Reynolds has received include the 2004 Eurand Prize and the 2008 Advances in Neuroblastoma Research Best Clinical Paper, the most cited paper in Clinical Cancer Research in 2009.

Reynolds has sponsored multiple investigational New Drug applications with the FDA and receives grant funding from the NIH, DOD and CPRIT. He is author or co-author of more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific papers that have garnered more than 34,000 citations. Scholar GPS ranks his publications (lifetime) at #8 for neuroblastoma and #51 for immortalized cell lines.

Current TTUHSC faculty members previously named to the NAI Class of Fellows also include Samuel Prien, Ph.D., a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the TTUHSC School of Medicine and Hiranmoy Das, Ph.D., a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the TTUHSC Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy.