BWIS Lecture on Thursday, 11/30: 'How a Farm Girl Became a Scientist and Impacted Patients' Lives'

November 22, 2017

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Cathy Cutler, Director of the Medical Isotope Research & Production program at Brookhaven Lab

Cathy Cutler, Director of the Medical Isotope Research & Production program at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, will give a talk on Thursday, Nov. 30. Cutler's talk is titled “How a Farm Girl Became a Scientist and Impacted Patients’ Lives” and it will be held at 4:30 p.m. in the Physics Large Seminar Room (Bldg. 510). Refreshments will be served at 4 p.m.

This talk is sponsored by Brookhaven Women in Science (BWIS) and is open to the public. Visitors to the Lab 16 and older must carry a photo ID while on site.

Radiopharmaceuticals are vital for "noninvasive," personalized cancer treatments that provide patients with high-impact doses to combat tumors without damaging nearby healthy cells. With more than 20 years' experience developing and evaluating radiopharmaceuticals, Cutler is helping lead their development for "theranostics" that combine medical therapies with diagnostic medical tests.

At Brookhaven, Cutler and her team collaborate on research with radiopharmaceuticals for cancer therapy and they make radioisotopes required for this research, as well. These radioisotopes would otherwise not be available but are, thanks to the high-energy Brookhaven Linac Isotope Producer (BLIP) that is part of the extensive particle accelerator infrastructure for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider—a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility located at Brookhaven.

Cutler joined Brookhaven Lab in 2015, after earning a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of Cincinnati and nearly 17 years at the University of Missouri Research Reactor Center. In addition to her role at the Lab, Cutler is chair of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging's committee on radiopharmaceuticals. She is a board member for the society's Therapy Center of Excellence and Center for Molecular Imaging Innovation and Translation. Cutler is also on the Society of Radiopharmaceutical Sciences' executive board of directors.

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