# Translational Imaging Research Program in Radiopharmaceutical Sciences

> **NIH NIH T32** · WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $246,446

## Abstract

Project Summary.
The Washington University T32 postdoctoral training grant “Translational Imaging in
Radiopharmaceutical Sciences” (abbreviated as “TIRS”) is a multidisciplinary initiative to train the
next generation of PET molecular imaging scientists to design, develop, and translate PET
radiotracers for noninvasive detection of pathophysiology mediating development of
neurodegenerative diseases and ADRDs. This training program will be spearheaded by
Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR), an institution known worldwide as a frontier for
translational PET research, and a preferred first stop for radiopharmaceutical scientists for
learning applied nuclear imaging research. To accomplish this novel training objective, the T32
TIRS program brings leading scientists from radiological sciences division of the MIR, the Knight
Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (Knight ADRC), Molecular Imaging Center, Institute of
Clinical and Translational Sciences, Cyclotron-GMP facility and PET-Radiotracer Translational
and Resource Center (P41 program through NIBIB) and faculty members as mentors from 12
departments to accomplish aims of proposed training for investigation of new or existing
biomarkers mediating AD and ADRDs with overlapping pathophysiology, assist in noninvasive
early detection of diseases, facilitating drug development and allow stratification of treatment
paradigms for managing patient care. Of note, the T32 TIRS mentors include chemists,
biochemists, biomedical engineers, immunologists, neurologists, psychiatrists, radiochemists,
and radiologists. The postdoctoral trainees will be drawn through various participating
departments at the medical school, and Danforth campus, including other universities in
metropolitan St. Louis area, and nearby academic institutions in the Midwest. We are proposing
to train 3 postdoctoral trainees each year, wherein each trainee will be enrolled for 2 years of
training, over 5 years of the T32 program. All trainees will be trained through mechanism of dual-
mentorship (one in basic science and other physician-scientist to provide multidisciplinary
training) and all trainees will be trained in responsible conduct of research including instructions
in methods of experimental rigor for accomplishing reproducible science. Of note, scientists
training at the interface of neuroscience and radiopharmaceutical sciences are also rapidly
declining nationwide in general, and there is a clear shortage of radiopharmaceutical scientists
across the board in the US workforce. Therefore, our T32 postdoctoral training program TIRS
would be expectedly to substantially meet this critical shortage of radiopharmaceutical scientists
trained at the interface of neuroscience and radiopharmaceutical sciences. Although our current
T32 TIRS programmatic mission is directed for trainees at ADRDs, we envision that trained
molecular PET imaging research scientists could also serve other departments and fields
including the medical oncolog...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10495878
- **Project number:** 1T32AG078117-01
- **Recipient organization:** WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Tammie Lee Smith Benzinger
- **Activity code:** T32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $246,446
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-09-01 → 2027-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10495878

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10495878, Translational Imaging Research Program in Radiopharmaceutical Sciences (1T32AG078117-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10495878. Licensed CC0.

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