BNL Honored for Developing Tracer Used to Image the Brain and Diagnose Cancer

American Chemical Society’s NY Section to Name BNL Chemistry Building as Historic Chemical Landmark, 10/19

Brookhaven National Lab Chemistry Building

Brookhaven's Chemistry Building, shortly after its construction in the mid 1960s.

The New York Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS) will designate the Chemistry Building at Brookhaven Lab as a Historical Chemical Landmark, in recognition of the synthesis of 18FDG, first performed by chemists at BNL in 1976. 18FDG is the first successful radiotracer for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, and it is now used worldwide for brain research and cancer diagnosis and management.

A ceremony will be held from 9 to 10 a.m. on Friday, October 19, in the Hamilton Seminar Room of the Chemistry Department (Bldg. 555). Speakers will include:

  • Alex Harris, BNL Chemistry Department Chair
  • John Sharkey, Archivist and Historian, New York Section, American Chemical Society
  • Doon Gibbs, BNL Deputy Director for Science and Technology
  • Bob Gordon, DOE Brookhaven Site Office Acting Deputy Manager
  • Benjamin Hsiao, Stony Brook University Vice President of Research
  • JaimeLee Rizzo, ACS 2012 New York Section Chair
  • Joanna Fowler, BNL Senior Chemist and Head of Radiotracer Development.

The ceremony and refreshments will be followed by scientific presentations from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The presenters include:

  • Louis Sokoloff, M.D., Laboratory of Cerebral Metabolism, National Institute of Mental Health: “Development of the 18FDG Method: A Serendipitous Journey from Bench to Bedside” (by video) 
  • Joanna Fowler, Ph.D., Head of Radiotracer Development, BNL, and Tatsuo Ido, Ph.D., Visiting Professor, Fukui University, Professor Emeritus, Tohoku University: “Working Against Time: 18FDG and Chemistry”
  • Abass Alavi, M.D., Chief, Division of Nuclear Medicine, University of Pennsylvania: “Unparalleled Contributions of FDG-PET to Medicine”
  • Mony J. DeLeon, Ed.D., Department of Psychiatry, New York University Medical Center: “Alzheimer’s Disease”
  • Nora D. Volkow, M.D., Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse: “FDG: Contribution to Our Understanding of Addiction”

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