The Relative Patlak Plot method, which was developed by our lab in 2018, is now made available on commercial PET scanners by a major manufacturer for clinical use. Compared to other methods, this method does not require the early-time blood input function and is therefore much easier to integrate with a clinical scan protocol for parametric imaging.

A clinical example of applying this technique for whole-body parametric imaging on a GE clinical PET scanner is shown in a recent Clinical Nuclear Medicine report by investigators from University Hospital Zurich and GE Healthcare.

We are delighted to announce that our Ph.D. candidate Yiran Wang successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis titled “Total-body PET Kinetic Modeling and Parametric Imaging with Applications to Lung Diseases and Beyond”. Yiran conducted this research under the joint supervision of Dr. Guobao Wang and Dr. Simon Cherry. The members of his dissertation committee also include Dr. Jinyi Qi.

Yiran’s dedication and hard work have culminated in this remarkable achievement. We are immensely proud of your accomplishments. Congratulations once again, Dr. Yiran Wang!

Ms. Anahita Tavakoli joins the lab as a new graduate student. She received her B.S. degree in Cognitive Science at the University of California, Davis. Anahita will be studying how the brain is changed in systemic disease using the total-body parametric PET technology. Welcome Anahita!

Dr. Kevin Chung won the Best Abstract Award in the postdoc group at the 2023 UC Davis Radiology Research Symposium for his very recent work on the parametric imaging of blood-brain barrier permeability of radiotracers using total-body dynamic PET. Congratulations Kevin!

Our lab has two abstracts accepted by the 2023 IEEE Medical Imaging Conference on the topic of total-body PET kinetic modeling and PET-enabled dual-energy CT.

Siqi Li, BA Spencer, YG Abdelhafez, L Nardo, SR Cherry, RD Badawi, T Jones, GB Wang. Quantification of volume-of-distribution of free-state radiotracer using total-body PET kinetic modeling with time delay correction. IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS & MIC), Vancouver, November 2023. accepted for oral presentation.

Yansong Zhu, S Li, R Bayerlein, RD Badawi, GB Wang. Maximum-likelihood estimation of scatter scaling for PET-enabled dual-energy CT. IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS & MIC), Vancouver, November 2023. accepted for oral presentation.

Guobao has been promoted to the rank of Full Professor with tenure, effective on July 1st, 2023.

At the Northern California Chapter of the AAPM 2023 Young Investigator Symposium held on May 19 in San Francisco, Dr. Siqi Li tied for first place for his talk “Dynamic PET Image Reconstruction using Single-Subject Deep Kernel Learning” in the postdoc category. Congratulations, Siqi!

Dr. Kevin Chung joins our lab starting on May 1st, 2023. Dr. Chung received his Ph.D. in Medical Biophysics from the University of Western Ontario, Canada in early 2023. He developed methods and software for low-dose CT perfusion imaging and also has direct experience in PET kinetic modeling. Kevin will work on total-body PET kinetic modeling for FDG blood flow imaging and will be jointly supervised by Dr. Guobao Wang and Dr. Simon Cherry. Welcome Kevin!

Our lab has multiple abstracts accepted for presentation at the Fully3D 2023 and SNMMI 2023.

One abstract on dynamic PET image reconstruction for Fully3D 2023:

• Siqi Li, Wang GB. Deep kernel representation learning for high-temporal resolution dynamic PET image reconstruction, accepted for oral presentation, Fully3D 2023 Conference, July 16-21, 2023

Three abstracts on total-body PET kinetic modeling for SNMMI 2023:

• Quyen Tran, Lyo V, Matsukuma KE, Corwin MT, Spencer BA, Wang Y, Romeo SR, Medici V, Cherry SR, Badawi RD, Sarkar S,  Wang GB. Total-body PET quantification of metabolism in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis using a three-tissue compartment model, SNMMI Annual Meeting 2023, accepted for an oral presentation, June 27, 2023
• Yiran Wang, Abdelhafez YG, Spencer BA, Verma R, Parikh M, Stollenwerk N, Nardo L, Jones T, Badawi RD, Cherry SR, Wang GB. Impact of dual-blood input function on kinetic modeling of lung tumors using total-body PET, SNMMI Annual Meeting 2023, accepted for an oral presentation, June 27, 2023
• Yiran Wang, Spencer BA, Abdelhafez YG, Parikh M, Verma R, Nardo L, Jones T, Badawi RD, Cherry SR, Wang GB. Total-body compartmental visualization using kinetic modeling and the EXPLORER PET/CT system, accepted for a poster presentation at SNMMI Annual Meeting 2023.

Xiaoyu Duan, a graduate student of the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Group (BMEGG), joins the lab to work on total-body PET kinetic modeling. She will be jointly supervised by Dr. Guobao Wang and Dr. Ramsey Badawi. Welcome, Xiaoyu!