WMIC 2013 focuses on first-in-human studies and new scientists

The 2013 World Molecular Imaging Congress (WMIC) held Sept. 18-21 in Savannah, Ga., highlighted biomarker clinical trials, diabetes and brain research, advances in technology and a program that encouraged emerging experts, say World Molecular Imaging Society leaders in an exclusive interview with Molecular Imaging.

On the line were Anna Wu, MD, PhD, president elect of WMIS 2013-2014 and professor and vice chair in the department of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in Los Angeles; Jason S. Lewis, PhD, program chair of this year’s WMIC meeting and vice chair of research in the department of radiology and chief of radiochemistry and imaging science service at Memorial Sloan Cancer Center in NY; and Marty Pagel, PhD, program chair for the upcoming 2014 meeting and a professor of biomedical engineering, chemistry and medical imaging at the University of Arizona in Phoenix.

“For the present meeting and looking forward, I think a very important theme has been the increasing role that molecular imaging has to play as we move more and more into the reality of targeted therapeutics and precision medicine,” said Wu about the main objectives for this year’s WMIC. “I think there is a lot of interest in the first in human studies, the translational studies and companion diagnostics, and in vivo imaging is going to be essential to continuing to develop not just products and therapies but to implement them, which is the ultimate goal of the society.”

Molecular imaging relies a great deal on biomarker development and that was apparent at this year’s meeting, said Lewis. “There has been a huge emphasis on the development of imaging biomarkers. We have in this meeting three first-in-human sessions where we have had all kinds of probes from optical probes and magnetic probes and nuclear probes, which has created a lot of interest. One of the things we had was what we called the chairman session. We had top radiologists and a lot of them spoke about imaging biomarkers and companion diagnostics in the realm of radiology and that was really mirrored in many of the abstracts and presentations that we have at the meeting this year.” 

Another main ingredient at the 2013 WMIC that is unique from previous meetings is a focus on incorporating junior scientists into the program in order to not just provide an educational experience, but an opportunity for them to moderate sessions and develop ideas for future research.

“We have a lot of focus at the meeting on young scientists,” said Lewis. “For example, we had moderators who were very senior at the professor level and we had post-docs moderating sessions with their experience. There are a lot of other things that these junior investigators are looking at as they look forward to building their own research programs. It’s truly learning how to translate their technology into the clinic and this meeting has really become a forum for them to interact with other scientists who have done this so they can learn from that experience and know that mistakes are made, but also know how the successes happened.”

Topics of sessions and presentations ran the gamut of molecular imaging, but a few events popped out as particularly interesting, including the newest PET/MR brain research that provides a functional map of complex brain circuitry, presented by Bruce R. Rosen, MD, PhD, a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School.  

“We had a fantastic plenary session from Dr. Rosen from Harvard where he showed that a number of PET imaging methods can be shown to look at the molecular detail in the brain,” explained Pagel. “They’ve been marrying that with MRI to look at the brain function.”

Other notable research included new metabolic and diabetes studies, the use of enzyme probes and developments in psychiatric imaging. Make sure to read the next issue of Molecular Imaging Insight for an in-depth look at the future of molecular imaging, including continued discussion from this exclusive from WMIS leadership.