SNMMI names 2014-2016 Wagner-Torizuka fellows

The Wagner-Torizuka fellowship, created by Henry N. Wagner, Jr., MD, and Kanji Torizuka, MD, PhD, provides Japanese clinicians in the field of molecular imaging a major platform for advanced training and research. Three physicians have been honored with the fellowship, SNMMI announced yesterday. 

The program, now in its eighth year, is sponsored by Japan-based Nihon Medi-Physics and includes an annual stipend of $24,000 for two years.

"SNMMI is proud to sponsor the Wagner-Torizuka Fellowship. This program honors two international pioneers and helps to promote continued research in the field of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging," said Gary L. Dillehay, MD, SNMMI immediate past president and chair of the SNMMI Awards Committee, in the press release.

The new fellows are Masayoshi Nakano, MD, from Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine in Ehime, Japan; Kensuke Tateishi, MD, PhD, from the department of neurosurgery at Yokohama City University in Kanagawa, Japan; and Mitsutomi Ishiyama, MD, from St. Luke's International Hospital, in Tokyo, Japan.

Nakano’s research is in PET neuroimaging and neuropsychiatric disorders. He is also working with the Russell H. Morgan department of radiology and radiological science at Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore, Md., advised by Dean F. Wong, MD, PhD.

Tateishi also works in neuroimaging, but his area of study is in genomics, PET radiopharmaceuticals and glioma imaging. He is currently working with the department of neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston with his advisor, Daniel Cahill, MD, PhD.

Ishiyama’s research focuses on functional imaging of pathophysiology. He currently works as a clinical fellow in the PET/CT fellowship program in the department of radiology at the University of Washington, Seattle, and is advised by Satoshi Minoshima, MD, PhD.