Automated Technologies for the Development and Production of Radiopharmaceuticals

Dr. R. Michael van Dam received his bachelor's degree in Engineering Physics from Queen's University (Kingston, ON, Canada), a master's degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto (Toronto, ON, Canada), and his doctoral degree in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA, USA). After graduate school, he was involved in the research and development of microfluidic devices for the synthesis of positron-emission tomography (PET) probes, first as a postdoctoral research at Caltech and then as a Senior Scientist at Siemens Molecular Imaging Biomarker Research. He joined the faculty of the UCLA Department of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology in 2007. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology, Department of Bioengineering, and the Physics and Biology in Medicine Graduate Program, as well as a Vice Chair of the Department of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology, an Associate Director of the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging, and Director of the Crump Cyclotron and Radiochemistry Technology Center. His research focuses on the development of novel, miniaturized technologies to perform multi-step radiosynthesis of radiopharmaceuticals (e.g. PET imaging tracers, theranostic agents) and high-sensitivity radiochemical analysis, and he is a pioneer in droplet-based radiochemistry and high-throughput tools for radiochemical synthesis and analysis. He has published over 80 papers and multiple book chapters and has been granted over 30 patents related to these discoveries. Dr. van Dam has also been involved in commercialization of these technologies as a co-founder of Sofie, Inc. and DropletPharma Corp.

Dr. Yuji Kuge received his bachelor's and master's degrees in Pharmaceutical Science from Kyoto University (Kyoto, Japan). After that, he worked on the research staff at Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd. He received his PhD in Pharmaceutical Science from Kyoto University (Kyoto, Japan) in 1996. He then joined the Department of Tracer Kinetics, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, as an associate professor and covered the role of radiochemistry team leader at Hokkaido University Hospital. In 2002, he moved to the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kyoto University, as an associate professor with the Department of Patho-functional Bioanalysis. In 2007, he returned to Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine as a professor in the Department of Tracer Kinetics & Bioanalysis. He is currently a Professor with the Central Institute of Isotope Science at Hokkaido University. Since 1985, he has been engaged in education and research on radiopharmaceutical sciences and pharmacokinetics using radioisotopes, particularly on the development of radiopharmaceuticals/molecular probes. He has published over 200 papers and multiple book chapters and has been granted over 10 patents related to these discoveries. He is a board member of the Society of Radiopharmaceutical Sciences and is involved in other professional societies.

Dr. Giancarlo Pascali received his PhD in Innovative Materials and Technologies in 2004 from ISUFI-Universitá del Salento (Lecce, Italy), following his work at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD) and IFC-CNR (Pisa, Italy). He worked at the University of Pisa until 2009, where he was responsible for the Toxicology Laboratory. He was Reference Scientist in the EU-funded "Radiochemistry On Chip" project until 2011; afterwards, he worked as Staff Scientist and QC manager at the IFC-CNR cyclotron site in Pisa. From 2013, he covered the role of Radiochemistry Team Leader at ANSTO (Sydney, Australia), and from 2020, he was Principal Research Scientist at the Prince of Wales Hospital and became conjoint Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales. His research interests are focused in developing new molecules, methods, and machines leading to a reliable and sustainable development of radiopharmaceuticals, to the final clinical deployment; due to this, he has extensive experience with synthesis and analysis automation, as well as developed innovations in both these fields. He is one of the pioneers in the use of flow microfluidic systems for radiochemistry, and he has published over 40 papers on these topics and is a regularly invited speaker at international conferences. He is also involved at several levels in related professional and scientific societies, like President of the Australian Society of Molecular Imaging and Director (Asia-Oceania) of the Society of Radiopharmaceutical Sciences.