SNMMI announces recipients of 2018-2020 Wagner-Torizuka Fellowship

The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2018-2020 SNMMI Wagner-Torizuka Fellowship. This one- or two-year fellowship, founded in 2008 by the late Henry N. Wagner, Jr., MD, and the late Kanji Torizuka, MD, PhD, is designed to provide extensive training and experience in the fields of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging for Japanese physicians in the early stages of their careers.

The program is intended to advance Fellows' research and clinical expertise, as well as facilitate professional development, and to equip them to make significant contributions to the field of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging.

The 2018-2020 fellows, each receiving an annual stipend of $24,000 (US), are:

• Gensuke Akaike, MD, University of Washington Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology, Seattle, Washington - His research focuses on SPECT/CT and PET/CT, primarily relating to oncology. Akaike is currently serving as chief resident in the nuclear medicine residency program at the University of Washington in Seattle under the supervision of Hubert Vesselle, MD, PhD.

• Osamu Manabe, MD, PhD, Hokkaido University Hospital, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Sapporo, Japan - He has conducted pioneering research with several PET tracers, such as the quantification of myocardial blood flow with 15O water and 82Rb, the assessment of malignant tumors with 18F-FDG and 11C-methionine, and the evaluation of inflammatory disease with 18F-FDG. Manabe currently serves as an assistant professor at Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine in the Department of Nuclear Medicine under the supervision of Daniel Berman, MD.

• Reiko Nakajima, MD, PhD, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York - Her research interests include the association between the therapeutic efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors and various parameters using PET/CT, gene mutation, and patient characteristics of head and neck cancer, lung cancer, and malignant lymphoma. Nakajima is currently a visiting research fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in the Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine under the supervision of Heiko Schoder, MD, MBA.

The SNMMI Wagner-Torizuka Fellowship program is sponsored by Nihon Medi-Physics Co., Ltd., in Japan.