School of Dentistry seminar series: Harnessing the Power of Molecular Imaging for Precision Medicine - Prof Weibo Cai

The Molecular Imaging and Nanotechnology Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin - Madison (http://mi.wisc.edu/) is mainly focused on three areas: 1) development of multimodality molecular imaging agents; 2) nanobiotechnology and its biomedical applications; and 3) molecular therapy of cancer and various other diseases. In this talk, I will present our recent work on molecular imaging and image-guided drug delivery of cancer and other diseases (e.g. diabetes, renal diseases, cardiovascular diseases, etc.) with peptides, proteins, and a variety of nanomaterials. The primary imaging techniques used in these studies are positron emission tomography (PET), photoacoustic tomography (PAT), optical imaging, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Some molecular targets that we have investigated are CD105 (i.e. endoglin), PD-1/PD-L1, CTLA-4, CD146, VEGFR, integrin α_vβ₃, among others. The nanomaterials that will be discussed in this presentation may include nanovaccines, silica-based nanoparticles, DNA nanomaterials, micelles, iron oxide nanoparticles, 2-D nanomaterials, hybrid nanomaterials, among others.

Weibo Cai is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Radiology, Medical Physics, Materials Science & Engineering, and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He received a BS degree in Chemistry from Nanjing University, China (1995) and a PhD degree in Chemistry from the University of California San Diego (2004). Between 2005 and 2008, Dr. Cai did his post-doctoral research in the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford University. In February 2008, Dr. Cai joined the University of Wisconsin - Madison as a Biomedical Engineering Cluster Hire, and was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure in 2014, and Full Professor in 2018. Dr. Cai’s research at UW-Madison (http://mi.wisc.edu) is primarily focused on molecular imaging and nanobiotechnology.

Dr. Cai has authored >360 peer-reviewed articles (total citation: >33,000 times; h-index: 96), edited 3 books, and given >280 talks. Dr. Cai has received many awards, including the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) Springer Prize (2011 & 2013), American Cancer Society Research Scholar (2013-2017), EANM Annual Congress Plenary Lecturer (2016), Inaugural Nano Research Young Innovators (NR45) in Nanobiotechnology Award (2018), Fellow of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE, 2018), Highly Cited Researchers from Clarivate Analytics (Cross-Field, 2018), Fellow of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI, 2019), Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC, 2021), SNMMI Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Council’s Michael J. Welch Award (2022), among others.

Dr. Cai has served on the Editorial Board of >20 scientific journals (e.g. Theranostics, Journal of Nuclear Medicine, European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Molecular Pharmaceutics, Bioconjugate Chemistry, American Journal of Cancer Research, American Journal of Translational Research, etc.), and participated in many grant review panels (NIH, DOD, NSF, American Cancer Society, Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas [CPRIT], Susan G. Komen, European Research Council, Canadian Cancer Society, Prostate Cancer Canada, many European countries, etc.). He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Nanobiotechnology (https://jnanobiotechnology.biomedcentral.com, impact factor 10.435), Editor-in-Chief of American Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (http://www.ajnmmi.us), and Associate Editor of European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (https://www.springer.com/journal/259, impact factor 9.236).

Dr. Cai is an active member of several scientific societies and he has served on various committees in these societies such as SNMMI Committee on Awards, SNMMI Committee on Scientific Program, SNMMI House of Delegates, SNMMI Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Council (Past President), etc. What Dr. Cai is most proud of is that his trainees at UW - Madison have received >130 awards to date, such as the 2012 Berson-Yalow Award from SNMMI, multiple Young Investigator Awards from SNMMI, several post-doctoral fellowships, among others. To date, more than a dozen of Dr. Cai’s trainees have started independent research groups at world-class universities (e.g. UW-Madison, Seoul National University, University of Utah, Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Nanjing University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Rutgers, etc.).

View the seminar on YouTube.