Mathis Receives Aebersold Award

Chester A. Mathis, PhD, director of the PET facility in thedepartment of radiology at the University of Pittsburgh (PA),

was named as the 2010 recipient of the Paul C. Aebersold Awardat the 57th Annual Meeting of the SNM on June 6 in Salt LakeCity, UT. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in basicscience applied to nuclear medicine.

Mathis completed his undergraduate training in chemistry atHumboldt State University (Arcata, CA). He then attended theUniversity of California, Davis, and was awarded a doctorate inchemistry in 1979. He completed postdoctoral training at CrockerNuclear Laboratory in Davis and at Lawrence Berkeley Labora-tory (LBL) at the University of California, Berkeley, inradiochemistry. He was a staff scientist at LBL from 1983 to1992 and moved to the University of Pittsburgh in 1992. Mathisand William E. Klunk, MD, PhD, of the department of psychiatryat the University of Pittsburgh, worked together to devise a PETradiotracer capable of imaging b-amyloid in Alzheimer disease.Mathis and Klunk developed a new class of radiopharmaceuticalagents, among which is Pittsburgh compound-B, to noninvasivelyassess b-amyloid load in the living human brain using PET. Thesestudies laid the groundwork for b-amyloid imaging as a tool forpresymptomatic detection of Alzheimer neuropathology and moreaccurate differential diagnosis of other dementias. Mathis hasauthored or coauthored more than 180 journal articles and bookchapters and presented more than 125 scientific talks and exhibits.

He was recognized last year by the Alzheimer’s Association withthe 2009 Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Institute Award andreceived the 2008 Potamkin Prize from the American Academy ofNeurology for research in Alzheimer’s and related diseases. TheSNM Brain Imaging Council presented him with the 2009 Kuhl–Lassen Award.

‘‘It is a real honor to be selected for this award,’’ Mathis saidon receiving the Aebersold award at the SNM plenary session. ‘‘Iam grateful to my colleagues in the profession for their support,and I look forward to continuing this research in order to furtheradvance molecular imaging and nuclear medicine.’’

Langstrom Receives de Hevesy Award

Bengt Roland Langstrom, PhD, a professor in the departmentof biochemistry and organic chemistry at Uppsala University

in Sweden, at Imperial College in London, UK, and at theUniversity of Odense, Denmark, was named as the 2010 recipientof the SNM Georg Charles de Hevesy Nuclear Pioneer Award forhis contributions to the nuclear medicine profession. He served asdirector of the Uppsala University PET Centre and has more than35 y of experience in the synthesis and applications of radiolabeledtracers for PET. He received the award on June 6 at the 57thAnnual Meeting of the SNM in Salt Lake City, UT.

‘‘I was so pleased to learn I was receiving this award,’’Langstrom said. ‘‘It is both a professional and personal achievementfor me, as well as an honor to be recognized by my colleagues.’’Langstrom has published more than 280 papers in chemistry andanother 355 in research related to medicine and the life sciences. Hehas received several awards for his research, including the 1999Arrhenius Award from the Swedish Chemical Society.

Each year since 1960, SNM has presented the Georg Charlesde Hevesy Nuclear Medicine Pioneer Award to an individual foroutstanding contributions to the field of nuclear medicine. DeHevesy received the 1943 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work indetermining the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimi-nation of radioactive compounds in the human body. His work ledto the foundation of nuclear medicine as a tool for diagnosis and

therapy. ‘‘The list of previous recipients of this award isimpressive and includes numerous Nobel laureates—such asErnest Lawrence, who built the world’s first cyclotron for theproduction of radionuclides, and Glenn Seaborg, who discoveredmore than half a dozen new elements,’’ said Graham. ‘‘Langstromjoins a select group of scientists whose research is deemed to havehad a significant impact on medicine.’’

Mathis receives Aebersold Award from Peter Herscovitch,MD, with Kenneth A. Krohn, PhD.

Langstrom (middle) with Michael M. Graham, PhD, MD, andDavid M. Goldenberg, MD, SCD

16N THE JOURNAL OF NUCLEAR MEDICINE • Vol. 51 • No. 8 • August 2010

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