Event

Lecture

David Chu Lecture Series: “Development of Imaging Agents for Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Diseases”

Date:
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Time:
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Location:
190 Kapoor Hall, South Campus
Cost:
Free
Presenter:
Hank F. Kung, PhD, Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Sponsor:
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Hank F. Kung, PhD, did his undergraduate work in chemistry at the Cheng Kung University of Taiwan. In 1976, he received his PhD in medicinal chemistry from the UB School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences under the mentorship of Professor Thomas Bardos. After postdoctoral training under Dr. Monte Blau at Roswell Park Memorial Institute, Dr. Kung joined the Department of Nuclear Medicine at UB first as an Assistant Professor, and later as Associate of Nuclear Medicine. He became Professor of Radiology and Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) in 1993.
Dr. Kung has a highly regarded reputation for his work in radiopharmaceutical development for neuroreceptor imaging utilizing single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET). One of Dr. Kung’s most well-known achievements is the development of Florbetapir 18F (trade name Amyvid, Eli Lilly), an imaging compound specific for mapping b-amyloid plaques in the brain, which allow for the in-vivo diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease He also developed novel PET imaging agents for targeting vesicular monoamine transporters in the brain, useful in the diagnosis and treatment assessment of patients with Parkinson’s disease. This drug is also under commercial development by Lilly (AV-133). Additional work includes mapping insulin secreting beta cells in the pancreas, and 11C and 18F labeled glutamines, intended to target tumor metabolism.
Dr. Kung serves on several editorial boards including the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. He has published over 310 peer-reviewed scientific papers and has received more than 40 US patents. His awards include the Jacob Javits Award for Neuroscience by the NIH; the 1997 Springer Award for the Best Paper in Basic Science; the Paul C. Aebersold Award by the Society of Nuclear Medicine in 2004; the Academy of Radiology Research’s Distinguished Investigator Award in 2012; and the Kuhl-Lassen Award by the Society of Nuclear Medicine in 2013. Dr. Kung is also working as an Investigator on the Pancreatic Cancer Dream Team with the Stand up to Cancer (SU2C) initiative.

For more information, contact:

Dhaval Shah
Email: dshah4@buffalo.edu