Dr. Thomas Reiner Receives the 2020 Roger Tsien Award for Excellence in Chemical Biology at the 2020 World Molecular Imaging Virtual Congress


Dr. Thomas Reiner Receives 2020 Roger Tsien Award at WMIC

Dr. Thomas Reiner, PhD, Recipient of the 2020 Roger Tsien Award at WMIC Virtual

Dr. Reiner demonstrates the type of talent and dedication to science that we as a society want to highlight and bring forward to the community and field of molecular imaging.

The World Molecular Imaging Society (WMIS) named Dr. Thomas Reiner, PhD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, as the recipient of the 2020 Roger Tsien Award for Excellence in Chemical Biology for making significant contributions to the field of molecular imaging in the area of chemical biology. This includes the creation and/or use of novel chemistries to probe biological systems using noninvasive imaging approaches.

Dr. Reiner is an Associate Member in the Department of Radiology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center with an appointment at the Chemical Biology Program of the Sloan Kettering Institute. He is also an Associate Professor at Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and an Associate Professor of Radiochemistry and Radiopharmacy at Weill Cornell Medical College.

“When choosing a recipient for this award, we carefully evaluate each nominee as a committee and heavily consider each candidate’s scientific accolades as well as their overall contributions and to the molecular imaging community,” said Dr. Martin Pomper, MD, PhD, WMIS Past President, Fellow, and Chair of the Awards Committee. “As a young investigator, Dr. Reiner has accomplished the validation and translation of novel imaging agents and radiotherapeutics that could potentially allow for early detection and better visualization of diseases. Dr. Reiner demonstrates the type of talent and dedication to science that we as a society want to highlight and bring forward to the community and field of molecular imaging.”

While much of his work is based in the preclinical research space, he also pursues several translational clinical projects. Dr. Reiner’s success includes the development of imaging agents, including PARPi-FL, a fluorescent intraoperative probe, which entered clinical trials in March 2017 (IND#133,109, NCT03085147). A second translated drug, [18F]PARPi, a quantitative PET imaging agent, was approved for clinical trials in August 2018 and November 2019 (IND#139974; NCT03631017 and NCT04173104, respectively). His lab has produced Phase I data for both agents and the works were published in Nature Biomedical Engineering (Kossatz et al 2020) and Clinical Cancer Research (Schöder et al, 2020).

“It is a great honor to receive this Award in the name of Roger Tsien,” said Dr. Thomas Reiner, PhD, Memorial Sloan Kettering. “I am very excited about continuing my work with PARP1 and translating other novel chemistries and biological approaches to improve the life and outcomes of patients.”

ABOUT WORLD MOLECULAR IMAGING SOCIETY

The WMIS is dedicated to developing and promoting translational research through multimodality molecular imaging. The education and abstract-driven WMIC is the annual meeting of the WMIS and provides a unique setting for scientists and clinicians with very diverse backgrounds to interact, present, and follow cutting-edge advances in the rapidly expanding field of molecular imaging that impacts nearly every biomedical discipline. Industry exhibits at the congress included corporations who have created the latest advances in preclinical and clinical imaging approaches and equipment, providing a complete molecular imaging educational technology showcase. For more information: http://www.wmis.org.

To follow up with Thomas Reiner or learn more about his lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, please click here: http://ski.edu/reiner.

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