Craig Levin, PhD, receives SNMMI Mars Shot Fund award
2023-06-07
(Press-News.org) Reston, Virginia—The SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund is excited to announce that Craig Levin, PhD, professor of radiology, physics, electrical engineering and bioengineering at Stanford University in Stanford, California, has been selected as the recipient of a $500,000 grant from the 2023 Mars Shot Fund. The grants recognize individuals who have made transformative impact in the field and elevated the value of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging.
The grant is one of five awarded in the inaugural year of the new SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund, which was established to provide resources that translate visionary nuclear medicine imaging, radiopharmaceutical therapy and data science research or projects into tools or treatments that will help improve the lives of patients.
Levin’s Mars Shot grant was awarded based on his proposal, “High-sensitivity imaging of multiple breast cancer biomarkers in a single PET/MRI imaging session.”
Currently available PET/CT and PET/MRI scanners allow co-registration of sensitive molecular and high-resolution anatomic (CT or MRI) data, but despite the availability of multiple PET tracers that target a range of breast cancer biomarkers, PET studies are limited to imaging a single agent per scan. Currently, assessment and treatment of breast cancer is driven clinically by assessing multiple markers; therefore, PET imaging with a single agent is inherently limited in its ability to fully characterize breast cancer. Further, imaging the substantial inter- and intra-tumoral heterogeneity among tumors that share the same biomarker status requires significantly higher resolution than that provided in commercially available whole-body PET systems.
“A high-resolution PET imaging device that is capable of multiplexed imaging of tumor heterogeneity in vivo would provide important biologic information that is not currently available to aid our understanding of breast cancer heterogeneity, assessment of treatment response to targeted therapies, and development of imaging-based therapeutics,” said Levin. “We propose to develop a platform of innovative technologies for simultaneous PET/MRI that we hypothesize will enable visualization and quantification of up to three molecular biomarkers of breast cancer in the same imaging session, with the same or lower dose exposure when compared to a conventional PET study. The project will explore and create highly innovative tools, technologies and methods that, if successful, will improve the lives of breast cancer patients.”
Levin is a professor of radiology and, by courtesy, of physics, electrical engineering, and bioengineering at Stanford University. He is a founding member of the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford and principal investigator and director of the Stanford Molecular Imaging Scholars postdoctoral training program. He received his MS, MPhil and PhD degrees in physics from Yale University. He has nearly 200 peer-reviewed publications and 40 patents awarded or pending. He lectured in a Nobel symposium in 2007, was elected into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering’s College of Fellows and was given the Academy of Radiology Research Distinguished Investigator Recognition Award.
###
About the SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund
The ‘Mars Shot for Nuclear Medicine, Molecular Imaging, and Molecularly Targeted Radiopharmaceutical Therapy’ is a forward-looking glimpse into the future of nuclear medicine. Its goal is to provide resources for the translation of visionary nuclear medicine imaging, radiopharmaceutical therapy, and data science research or projects into tools or treatments helping improve the lives of patients.
About the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) is an international scientific and medical organization dedicated to advancing nuclear medicine and molecular imaging, vital elements of precision medicine that allow diagnosis and treatment to be tailored to individual patients in order to achieve the best possible outcomes.
SNMMI’s members set the standard for molecular imaging and nuclear medicine practice by creating guidelines, sharing information through journals and meetings and leading advocacy on key issues that affect molecular imaging and therapy research and practice. For more information, visit www.snmmi.org.
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2023-06-07
Reston, Virginia—The SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund is excited to announce that Julie Sutcliffe, PhD, professor of internal medicine and biomedical engineering, University of California–Davis, has been selected as the recipient of a $500,000 grant from the 2023 Mars Shot Fund. The grants recognize individuals who have made transformative impact in the field and elevated the value of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging.
The grant is one of five awarded in the inaugural year of the new SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund, which was established to provide ...
2023-06-07
Reston, Virginia—The SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund is excited to announce that Randy Yeh, MD, a radiologist and nuclear medicine physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and assistant professor of radiology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, has been selected as the recipient of a $500,000 grant from the 2023 Mars Shot Fund. The grants recognize individuals who have made transformative impact in the field and elevated the value of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging.
The grant is one of five awarded in the inaugural year of the new SNMMI Mars Shot Research Fund, which ...
2023-06-07
KANSAS CITY, MO—June 7, 2023—The placenta, critical for healthy embryo development, is a multi- purpose organ with a precise lifespan—the length of a pregnancy. New research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research suggests that further exploration of the placenta’s roles and capabilities may one day lead to insights for positive pregnancy outcomes.
The study published in Development on June 6, 2023, focuses on a unique property of many cells comprising the placenta that explains how these cells perform essential functional and physical ...
2023-06-07
More than 5,000 people are diagnosed annually with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a fatal, neurodegenerative disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, gradually robbing people of the ability to speak, move, eat and breathe.
To date, only a handful of drugs exist to moderately slow its progression. There is no cure.
But CU Boulder researchers have identified a surprising new player in the disease—an ancient, virus-like protein best known, paradoxically, for its essential role in enabling placental development.
The findings ...
2023-06-07
Research Highlights:
58% of adults with Type 2 diabetes covered by Alabama Medicaid did not receive prompt outpatient care after hospitalization for heart failure.
African American and Hispanic adults with Type 2 diabetes were less likely to have post-discharge follow-up health visits, or if they did, the visits occurred nearly two to three days later compared to white adults.
Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET Wednesday, June 7, 2023
DALLAS, June 7, 2023 — More than half of Medicaid-covered adults in Alabama with Type 2 diabetes did not receive follow-up health care within the recommended two-week period following hospitalization for newly-diagnosed heart ...
2023-06-07
The first stars illuminated the Universe during the Cosmic Dawn and put an end to the cosmic "dark ages" that followed the Big Bang. However, the distribution of their mass is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the cosmos.
Numerical simulations of the formation of the first stars estimate that the mass of the first stars reached up to several hundred solar masses. Among them, the first stars with masses between 140 and 260 solar masses ended up as pair-instability supernovae (PISNe). PISNe are quite different from ordinary supernovae (i.e., Type II ...
2023-06-07
TORONTO, CANADA –A new study followed more than 7000 middle aged and older Canadians for approximately three years to understand whether higher rates of social participation were associated with successful aging in later life. They found that those who participated in volunteer work and those participating in recreational activities were more likely to maintain excellent health across the subsequent 3-year study period and less likely to develop physical, cognitive, mental, or emotional problems.
The researchers defined successful aging as freedom from any serious physical, cognitive, mental, or emotional conditions ...
2023-06-07
Certain crops, like greenhouse tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and blueberries, rely on bumblebees for a style of pollination that only bumblebees can perform. Among growers, the preference can be for bigger-bodied bumblebees because they’re thought to be more efficient pollinators.
Enabled by a $750,000 grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the research team will investigate factors suspected of influencing bumblebee biology and body size, including climate change, wildfires, and the ...
2023-06-07
PHILADELPHIA – First-line ibrutinib (Imbruvica) plus venetoclax (Venclexta) led to high response and survival rates in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) whether or not their cancer harbored high-risk genetic features typically associated with poor outcomes, according to results published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).
Patients with high-risk CLL, defined by deletion of 17p, mutated TP53, and/or unmutated immunoglobulin ...
2023-06-07
IOP Publishing (IOPP) is expanding its open access (OA) Environmental Research portfolio to address the urgent need for sustainable food solutions globally. Environmental Research: Food Systems, which supports the United Nation’s Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs), is an interdisciplinary forum for researchers working to achieve sustainable global food security.
Scientific innovations are key to transforming the global food system. Efficient and effective food supply enables the world to achieve progress on all 17 of the SDGs, from eliminating poverty ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Craig Levin, PhD, receives SNMMI Mars Shot Fund award
