WMIC 2026 Highlights

Thank you to everyone who joined us for WMIC 2026! Click here to view the photo gallery

WMIC 2026 Award Winners

Gold Medal Award Winner

Fabian Kiessling, MD

Full Professor and director of the Institute for Experimental Molecular Imaging, Member of the Board of Directors of the Helmholtz Institute for Biomedical Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

The Gold Medal is the highest honor within the Society and is awarded to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to molecular imaging research. It recognizes innovative discoveries and approaches that integrate molecular imaging into science and healthcare, significantly advancing our understanding of biology and improving patient care.

The WMIS Awards Committee selected Dr. Kiessling for the breadth, originality and translational impact of his work across molecular ultrasound imaging, super-resolution ultrasound, nanoparticle delivery and theranostics. His research has helped advance micro- and nanobubble-based contrast agents for diagnostic imaging and therapy, as well as ultrasound localization microscopy approaches capable of visualizing microvascular structures beyond the classical diffraction limit of ultrasound.

Roger Tsien Award Winner

Eszter Boros, PhD

Hall-Fisher Professor, Department of Chemistry Affiliate faculty member of the Department of Medical Physics, School of Medicine and Public Health University of Wisconsin–Madison

The Roger Tsien award is given to an early-stage investigator at the level of assistant or associate professor who has made 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. The WMIS awards committee selection was based largely on new syntheses of molecular probes, that have been used for a better understanding of the biology of health.

This honor recognizes Dr. Boro’s work pioneering new approaches that harness the unique properties of metal ions to develop molecular probes, radiopharmaceuticals, and therapeutics for applications including infection imaging, cancer diagnosis, and targeted treatment. Her interdisciplinary research spans multimodal imaging, radiometal and fluorine-18 chemistry, and prodrug activation, advancing inorganic chemistry at the interface of chemistry, biology, and medicine.

Young Investigator of the Year Award Winner

Sanghee Lee, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher

Sanghee was awarded Young Investigator of the Year for his abstract “Targeting Bacterial Gluconate Metabolism for Differentiating Infection from Inflammation Using [18F]FGA PET in Murine Models.” He is a radiochemistry expert and Postdoctoral Scholar in Dr. David Wilson’s group at UCSF.

Second place was awarded to Wenhui Huang from Jinan University for “Nectin-4-Targeted Optical Imaging Enables Rapid Pathology-Assisted Margin Assessment in Patients with Head and Neck Cancers,” and third place was awarded to Sahar Ifrah from Tel Aviv University for “Neuropathology Detection using Normative Molecular Deep Learning of Saturation Transfer MRI.”