29 Sep 22. PiW meeting success & training opportunities

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Summary

The PET is Wonderful (PiW) meeting took place over the 27th – 28th September 2022: the first in-person meeting since 2019, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The meeting celebrated its 5th anniversary and went ahead successfully with 73 attendees.

Keynote speaker

• Professor Vesna Sossi from The University of British Columbia, Canada

Other contributors 

• Professor Steve Archibald, Hull Molecular Imaging Centre, UK
• Dr Victor Pike, National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA
• Professor Richard Carson, Yale University, USA
• Professor Adriaan Lammertsma, University of Groningen, Netherlands
• Dr Igor Yakushev, Technical University of Munich, Germany
• Dr Irène Buvat, Institut Curie, France

Prizes

Every year the PiW meeting awards some fantastic prizes, and the 2022 recipients of these were:

• Very Important Project (VIP) PET Prize 2022:
  • Diana Luna Buitrago & Andrea Caporali, University of Edinburgh, UK,
  • “18F-NaF imaging of novel miR-26b KO mouse model of vascular calcification”
• Best oral presentation prize:
  • Florence Muller, University of Ghent, Belgium,
  • “Dose Reduction and Image Enhancement in preclinical Total Body PET using Deep Learning”
• Best poster presentation prize:
  • Mark MacAskill, University of Edinburgh, UK,
  • “Assessment of TSPO in a rat myocardial infarction model reveals a biphasic inflammatory signal, as well as an age related increase in cardiomyocyte TSPO expression”
• Delegate engagement prize:
  • Vesna Sossi, University of British Columbia, Canada

New training programme

This year’s PiW meeting also had a very exciting announcement: the official launch of the PET is Wonderful (PiW) – Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) training programme.

The training programme includes a summer scholarship scheme as well as various training opportunities, including free and online PET teaching materials, online workshops, and personalized lectures on PET imaging world-wide.

Dr Adriana Tavares, Reader in PET and PiW founder, received the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) Imaging Scientist award in December 2020. Adriana’s project title “Kinetic Modelling and Analysis of Total-Body PET Imaging Datasets”, proposes to develop new methods for analysis of complex PET images to derive a whole-body “molecular fingerprint” unique to each individual. She will also develop teaching opportunities to teach the next generation of imaging biologists what PET techniques are and how to use them to support their research.

• For more information on the PiW-CZI summer scholarship programme and other training opportunities, please click here
• For more information on the free and online PiW-CZI PET teaching materials, please click here

Reflection

We asked Dr Tavares her thoughts on the success of the PiW meeting, and the launch of the PiW-CZI collaboration.

“I’m extremely grateful to the CZI for support this exciting programme of teaching and research, which we have just launched during the last PET is Wonderful annual scientific meeting 2022.

With this exciting programme of teaching and research we hope to help transform how PET imaging is currently used worldwide, while supporting open science and training of the next generation of imaging scientists.

Thanks

I would like to thank the amazing PET is Wonderful team in Edinburgh and Edinburgh Imaging Academy for helping bring this conference to life and supporting the development of the new teaching materials respectively.”

PET is Wonderful 2022 Local Organising Committee (LOC):

• Adriana Tavares
• Anne Grant
• Bea Andrews
• Carlos Alcaide-Corral
• Tim Morgan
• Victoria Reid