PET Neuroimaging in Drug Discovery
Sep 19, 2025
2:30PM to 3:30PM
Date/Time
Date(s) - 19/09/2025
2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Categories
Prof. Neil Vasdev
University of Toronto
Director, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Brain Health Imaging Centre
This presentation will focus on some non-traditional approaches to develop radiopharmaceuticals from “bench to bedside” for medical imaging using positron-emission tomography (PET) to image the living human brain. Specifically, cutting-edge approaches and radiochemical methods for imaging receptors and signal transduction pathways with PET, as well as our recent work to expand beyond the “amyloid cascade hypothesis” of Alzheimer’s disease, including tauopathies, will be presented. Several of the neuroimaging agents have also been applied as oncology probes, and examples where we have been “learning from cancer” imaging research will be discussed. An outlook with examples of how academic-pharma partnerships have shaped our imaging program and the vision for a Canada-wide training program for radiopharmaceutical and medical imaging sciences will also be highlighted. The intricacies of transitioning labeled compounds to PET radiopharmaceuticals and our aspiration to work towards the ultimate, albeit impossible, goal in the field: to radiolabel virtually any compound for PET will be raised as points for discussion.
Speaker bio:
Prof. Neil Vasdev is the Director and Chief Radiochemist of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Brain Health Imaging Centre, and the Director of the Azrieli Centre for Neuro-Radiochemistry. He is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Radiochemistry and Medical Imaging, the endowed Azrieli Chair in Brain and Behaviour and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Neil trained in chemistry and neuroscience for his undergraduate training and continued to complete a PhD supported by NSERC at McMaster University (co-supervised by Prof. Raman Chirakal and Prof. Gary Schrobilgen), and subsequently completed an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship at Berkeley National Laboratories. He began his faculty career at CAMH/University of Toronto in 2004. In 2011, he was recruited as faculty to the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and was recruited back to Toronto in 2018. His research focuses on the development of new PET radiopharmaceuticals for imaging the living human brain, with a particular interest in neurodegenerative diseases including tauopathies. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles and delivered over 200 invited lectures and holds over 10 families of patents. He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.
In-Person: ABB 102
Online: https://mcmaster.zoom.us/j/99624604255
Meeting ID: 996 2460 4255
Passcode: 251690
If you have an accommodation need for an upcoming seminar or event, please e-mail bimr@mcmaster.ca to make the appropriate arrangements.