WMIS Awards Thomas Meade, PhD, the 2020 Gold Medal Award for Lifetime of Research in Cancer Imaging

Thomas Meade Received the Highest Honor from WMIS at the World Molecular Imaging Congress (WMIC) Virtual 2020 meeting on October 9.

CULVER CITY, CA., October 9, 2020 – The World Molecular Imaging Society (WMIS) awarded the 2020 Gold Medal Award to Thomas J. Meade, PhD, at Northwestern University, for his renowned dedication to the molecular imaging community and revolutionary contributions to the field. Meade accepted the Gold Medal at the 13th annual World Molecular Imaging Congress (WMIC), October 7-9. The meeting was held virtually at wmisvirtual.org. His address in acceptance of the Medal has been postponed to the WMIC annual meeting in Miami, October 6-10 of 2021.

“Meade was chosen for his sustained research in the areas of magnetic resonance and optical molecular imaging, visionary breakthroughs for deep tissue imaging, and advances in quantitative and biologically specific interrogation of living systems,” says Martin Pomper, MD, PhD Director of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Johns Hopkins Medicine, Chair of the Awards Committee WMIS.

Currently Meade serves as the Eileen M. Foell Professor of Cancer Research and Professor of Chemistry, Molecular Biosciences, Neurobiology, Biomedical Engineering and Radiology at Northwestern University. He is also a member of the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute (CLP).

Meade is widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of conditionally activated magnetic resonance (MR) agents and the development of probes for MRI and optical imaging. In collaboration with the CLP, he designed the Center for Advanced Molecular Imaging to perform transdisciplinary research from molecule to whole animal. He is the former President and founding member of the Society of Molecular Imaging and founder of Imaging in 2020, a biannual conference focusing on all aspects of imaging. He currently holds over 100 patents and is the founder of companies.

Meade received his master’s in Biochemistry and PhD in inorganic chemistry. After completing a NIH fellowship in Radiology at Harvard Medical School, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology. In 1991, he joined the Division of Biology and the Beckman Institute at Caltech. In 2002, Meade moved to Northwestern University, where he is the Director of the Center for Advanced Molecular Imaging (CAMI).

Meade’s research focuses on coordination chemistry and its application in bioinorganic problems that include biological molecular imaging, electron transfer processes and the development of electronic biosensors for the detection of DNA and proteins. He has received numerous awards and in 2009 was a Miller Professor at the University of California Berkeley. Meade holds more than 100 US patents and has founded five biotech companies, Clinical Micro Sensors, Meataprobe, PreDx, Ohmx and DetEctz, which are developing hand-held detection devices for protein and DNA detection and bioactivated MR contrast agents for clinical imaging.

“I am incredibly honored to receive this award,” says Dr. Meade. “It’s wonderful when your curiosity and passion for science can lead to discoveries that can impact people’s lives for the better. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.”

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: www.wmis.org

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