Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Penn PET Explorer

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Speaker Biographies


University of Pennsylvania

Joel Karp, PhD

Joel Karp, PhD
Professor of Radiologic Physics in the Department of Radiology
Chief of the Physics and Instrumentation Research Group
University of Pennsylvania

 joelkarp@mail.med.upenn.edu

Dr. Karp is Professor of Radiologic Physics in the Department of Radiology, and in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. He is Chief of the Physics and Instrumentation Research Group in Radiology and directs Nuclear Medicine/PET Physics and QC in the clinic, as well as the Small Animal Imaging Facility Nuclear Medicine (PET/SPECT/CT) core. He received his PhD in nuclear physics from MIT in 1980 and joined the faculty at Penn in 1983, and since then his research has focused on investigations to improve and characterize the performance of PET technology, including front-end electronics, detector design, data correction techniques, and 3D image reconstruction algorithms. This work has resulted in development of fully 3D PET scanners and innovative imaging systems based on various scintillation detectors, and some of these concepts have been implemented commercially for human and animal imaging. Dr. Karp has developed systems for time-of-flight (TOF) imaging, and his work with industry led to adoption of TOF in modern PET/CT scanners. Dr. Karp is currently involved in development of large axial FOV PET instruments with improved SiPM-based detectors, and leads the Penn program that collaborates with UC Davis on the Explorer project. Dr. Karp has held various committee positions and has helped to organize scientific programs in the Society of Nuclear Medicine and the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society. He currently serves as the Senior Editor of the IEEE Transactions of Radiation and Plasma Medical Sciences. Dr. Karp was selected to be an IEEE Fellow in 2013.


David Mankoff, MD, PhD

David Mankoff, MD, PhD
Gerd Muehllehner Professor of Radiology
Vice-Chair for Research, Department of Radiology
University of Pennsylvania

 david.mankoff@uphs.upenn.edu
 215.615.3687

Dr. David Mankoff is the Gerd Muehllehner Professor of Radiology, Vice-Chair for Research in Radiology, and Director of the PET Center at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.  Dr. Mankoff is board-certified in Nuclear Medicine and holds a PhD in Bioengineering focusing on PET instrumentation. He practices Nuclear Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, with a special interest in oncologic and endocrine applications of molecular imaging and treatment of endocrine tumors.  Dr. Mankoff’s research focuses on molecular imaging of cancer, primarily on breast cancer, and emphasizes therapeutic monitoring and identifying factors mediating therapeutic resistance and translation of new methods to clinical trials.   He also focuses on quantitative imaging methods related to molecular cancer imaging.  Dr. Mankoff is a Komen Scholar for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. He also Chairs the Experimental Imaging Sciences Committee and serves as Co-Chair of the Scientific Program Committee of ECOG-ACRIN.  Dr. Mankoff is a past member and Chairman of the American Board of Nuclear Medicine.  Dr. Mankoff is on the editorial boards of Nuclear Medicine and Biology, Breast Cancer Research, Journal of Nuclear Medicine, The Breast Journal, and Clinical Cancer Research and serves as an Associate Editor for Breast Cancer Research and the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.


Daniel A. Pryma, MD

Daniel A. Pryma, MD
Chief of the Division of Nuclear Medicine & Clinical Molecular Imaging, Department of Radiology
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

 Daniel.Pryma@uphs.upenn.edu

Daniel A. Pryma, MD is an Associate Professor of Radiology & Radiation Oncology and Chief of the Division of Nuclear Medicine & Clinical Molecular Imaging, Department of Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His clinical and research interests focus on therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, companion diagnostics and image-guided therapy.


Robert H. Mach, PhD

Robert H. Mach, PhD
Britton Chance Professor of Radiology
University of Pennsylvania

 rmach@mail.med.upenn.edu
 215-746-8233

Robert H. Mach has conducted research in the field of Nuclear Medicine and radiotracer development for over 30 years.  He has held faculty positions at the University of Pennsylvania (1987 – 1992) and Wake Forest University (1992 – 2002).  In 2002 he moved to the Division of Radiological Sciences of Washington University School of Medicine where he was a Professor in the Departments of Radiology, Cell Biology & Physiology, and Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics. Dr. Mach was also the Director of the Washington University Cyclotron Facility (2004 – 2013) and Chief of the Radiological Chemistry Lab (2007 – 2013) of the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology. At WUSM, his key scientific accomplishment was the development of 7 different radiotracers which have been or are in the process of being translated into PET studies in human subjects. In 2013 he returned to the University of Pennsylvania and is the Britton Chance Professor of Radiology and Director of the PET Radiochemistry Program. His research interests include the development of radiotracers for imaging CNS receptors, cell proliferation, and mechanisms of cellular death.

Dr. Mach is a past President of the Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Council of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging and is currently on the Board of Directors of the Society of Radiopharmaceutical Sciences. He has over 225 peer-reviewed publications and 12 book chapters, and holds 20 patents on the development of PET-based radiopharmaceuticals.


Lisa J. States, MD

Lisa J. States, MD
Pediatric Radiologist
Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania

 STATES@email.chop.edu

Over the past 20 years I have dedicated my academic career in pediatric radiology to the advancement of pediatric imaging with a focus on pediatric oncology, magnetic resonance imaging and pediatric nuclear medicine. I have served roles as an administrator, educator, researcher and manuscript reviewer in the field of pediatric imaging, including nuclear medicine. I have been a regular speaker on topics in pediatric nuclear medicine at national meetings for the Society for Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) and the Society for Pediatric Radiology (SPR).  As the Director of the Section of Oncologic Imaging at CHOP, I have been involved in many initiatives and projects in the hospital related to cancer imaging and management. In October of 2016, I participated in a pediatric cancer surveillance workshop created to develop guidelines for screening children with cancer predisposition syndromes

My current research focus is the evaluation of focal pancreatic lesions in Congenital Hyperinsulinism and acquired insulinomas in children. Since January of 2009, I have been the principal investigator of the project “Phase II Safety and Efficacy study of 18F-L-Fluoro-DOPA (F-DOPA) PET/CT Scan Localization of Focal Pancreatic Lesions in Children with Hyperinsulinemic Hypoglycemia”. I have maintained the protocol in active status since that time under the oversight of the CHOP IRB, the UPENN Radioactive Drug Research Committee and FDA and am currently the Sponsor/PI for this IND related study. This project has given me invaluable experience as a researcher and has given me a pivotal role in the pursuit of FDA approval for 18F-DOPA.

My current clinical focus is the optimization of a new PET/MRI scanner installed at CHOP in the fall of 2015. I am tasked with creating applications and protocols for pediatric use. This opportunity has given me the opportunity to transform the way pediatric imaging is used in the practice of pediatric oncology.


Jeffrey Schmall

Jeffrey Schmall
Research Associate
University of Pennsylvania

 schmall@mail.med.upenn.edu

Jeff Schmall is a Research Associate in the Department of Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania. He obtained his PhD in 2013 from UC Davis working in the lab of Simon Cherry studying the use of silicon photomultipliers in PET. During his postdoc he studied time-of-flight PET under the mentorship of Joel Karp and is now working as part of the Penn PET Explorer team. Jeff's research interests include advanced PET detector designs, simultaneous PET/MRI imaging, and low-dose techniques for pediatrics.  



University of California, Davis

Simon R. Cherry, PhD

Simon R. Cherry, PhD
Professor, Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology
University of California, Davis

 srcherry@ucdavis.edu
 (530) 754-9419

Dr. Cherry’s research interests center around biomedical imaging and in particular the development and application of technologies, methods and systems for in vivo molecular imaging.  A significant focus has been on developing high-resolution positron emission tomography (PET) systems to support preclinical studies of novel disease treatments in animal models of human disease, as well as total-body PET scanners that can image all the tissues/organs of the body simultaneously.   Another area of long-standing interest has been the integration of complementary imaging modalities to enable simultaneous multimodal imaging, primarily with PET and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).  Dr. Cherry also studies interactions between ionizing radiation and optical radiation, for example developing techniques based on Cerenkov luminescence and x-ray activated luminescence for biomedical applications.  All of these technologies are being applied in a range of research and clinical applications to address current limitations in imaging in the context of improving disease detection, and quantitatively monitoring disease progression and the effectiveness of medical treatments and intervention.


Ramsey D Badawi, PhD

Ramsey D Badawi, PhD
Director of Research, Division of Nuclear Medicine
University of California, Davis

 ramsey.badawi@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu

Ramsey Badawi is Professor of Radiology at UC Davis Medical Center, where he serves as Chief of Nuclear Medicine and Vice-Chair for Research. He obtained his PhD in PET Physics at the University of London in 1998, specializing in data corrections for fully 3D PET. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington, Seattle under the mentorship of Dr. Tom Lewellen, he joined the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in 2000, where he helped to set up their first clinical PET service. In 2004 he joined UC Davis. His interests are in the development of high resolution PET/CT scanners for extremity imaging in humans, ultra-high resolution scanners for animal imaging, re-configurable PET systems and total-body PET scanners. He is also interested in applications of advanced reconstruction methods for parametric imaging in humans.



Yale University

Richard E. Carson, PhD

Richard E. Carson, PhD
Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and of Biomedical Engineering
Director of Graduate Studies, Yale Biomedical Engineering
Yale University

 richard.carson@yale.edu
 203-737-2814

Richard E. Carson is Professor of Biomedical Engineering and of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at Yale University and Director of the Yale PET Center. His research focus includes development of mathematical models for novel PET radiopharmaceuticals and applications of PET tracers in clinical populations and preclinical models of disease, with specific focus on neuropsychiatric disorders. Dr. Carson has published over 250 paper, given over 125 invited lectures and has received numerous awards including the Kuhl-Lassen award and the Edward J. Hoffman Award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine, and the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Academy of Radiology Research.

PET Center Website


Ghent University

Stefaan Vandenberghe

Stefaan Vandenberghe
Research professor
UGhent, Belgium

 Stefaan.vandenberghe@ugent.be
 003293325458

Stefaan Vandenberghe obtained his MSc in Physics in 1996 and an additional degree in Biomedical Engineering in 1997 from KU Leuven. After working in the nuclear medicine department of the University Hospital Ghent (1997-1999) he started a Ph.D. in the MEDISIP group of the University of Ghent. His research was on the optimal configuration of gamma cameras for PET imaging and on list-modereconstruction techniques for PET systems. He received a Ph.D. (Engineering) from this university in 2002. During his FWO postdoctoral research he worked on rotating slat systems (with solid state detectors) Monte Carlo simulations and natural pixelreconstruction. In 2004 he joined Philips Research USA (Briarcliff) to work as a Senior Scientist in the Clinical Site Program. The position was at the University of Pennsylvania (Dr. Joel Karp) in Philadelphia. During this period he worked on simulations, reconstructions and measurements for Time-Of-Flight PET systems (LaBr3 and LYSO). At the end of 2005 he returned to Belgium (return grant) in the MEDISIP group. In collaboration with different researchers in the group a variety of topics is covered: Monte Carlo simulations, rotating slat SPECT, Time-of-Flight PET, PET-MRI and quantification for radionuclide dosimetry. He has been appointed as full time research professor (BOF-ZAP) at UGent since October 2007 and leads the MEDISIP research group since 2008.  He co-authored about 100 scientific A1 journal papers and is co-inventor of four patents. He was Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science (till 2017) and involved in the organization of conferences and workshop on PET-MR and SPECT-MR. During the last years his research has focused on the development of  attenuation correction and PET system design simulations for PET-MR in two EU-FP7 projects  Hyperimage and Sublima.  Together with Christian Vanhove he leads the small animal molecular imaging facility (Infinity) of Ugent. The detector technology and micro SPECT and PET prototypes of the MEDISIP research group have led to the creation of the spinoff company Molecubes. Since 2017 he is also the editor-in-chief of EJNMMI Physics and coordinates together with the Nuclear medicine unit the Innovative Imaging and Therapy Consortium of Ghent university and its hospital (Imitghent.be)