Cai Research Group Shines at the 2014 SNMMI Annual Meeting in St. Louis

Posted on July 2014

The Molecular Imaging and Nanotechnology Laboratory was very successful at the 2014 Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) Annual Meeting in St. Louis (June 7-11, 2014). SNMMI is an international scientific and professional organization of more than 18,000 physicians, technologists, physicists, chemists, and radiopharmacists dedicated to improving health care by advancing molecular imaging and therapy. Each year, SNMMI holds a meeting that draws thousands of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging professionals from around the world and features more than 1,800 scientific paper and poster submissions.

When tallying the number of abstracts, the Cai Research Group was among the top five contributors, with 17 from the Cai Group and four from collaborators. 16 of the abstracts were chosen as oral presentations, tied with a Korean group for the most at the conference. In addition, one poster, authored by Hao Hong, was selected as a finalist for the Poster Award in the Molecular Targeting Probes category.

The Cai Research Group includes Assistant Scientists Hao Hong and Yunan Yang, Post-Doctoral Fellows Feng Chen, Rubel Chakravarty, and Haiming Luo, and Graduate Students Reinier Hernandez, Sixiang Shi, and Shreya Goe. While Feng Chen led the group’s presence at the conference with five separate oral presentations, the remaining members gave at least one oral presentation each.

As part of the SNMMI Annual Meeting, The Young Investigator Award Symposium (YIAS) is held to recognize research performed by medical students, residents, and fellows. The YIAS is divided into a number of categories and UW-Madison placed three abstracts each in two of them, Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Council and Center for Molecular Imaging Innovation and Translation. In the latter category, UW Department of Medical Physics’ Paul A. Ellison, Ph.D. and Christina M. Lewis took second and third place, respectively. Further, Hao Hong received the Young Scientist Award from the Chinese Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.

In addition, Professor Cai organized and moderated a well-attended continuing education session entitled, “Radiolabeled Nanoparticles” and was a co-moderator for another continuing education session entitled, “PET Imaging with Radiometals”.

While the Cai Group has submitted abstracts to the SNMMI annual meeting for the past four years, 2014 was especially fruitful, with more awards and accolades than the previous years combined.