Under clinical investigations, first prize was awarded to: Timothy R. DeGrado, Steve W. Baldwin, Shuyan Wang, Matthew D. Orr, Ray P. Liao, Henry S. Friedman, Robert Reiman, David T. Price, and R. Edward Coleman for their article "Synthesis and Evaluation of 18F-Labeled Choline Analogs as Oncologic PET Tracers," which appeared in the JNM in December 2001. J. Nucl.Med 2001 42:1805-1814. According to the JNM, the authors' success in the synthesis of 18F Choline is a significant advancement in the development of radiopharmaceuticals for clinical use. The current radiotracer, 18F FDG, while very useful in many situations, has substantial limitations in oncological imaging because of its inability to detect very small tumors, to visualize brain and intrapelvic tumors, and to differentiate between malignancies and chronic inflammation.
Second prize went to Tali Sharir, Guideo German, Xingping Kang, Howard C. Lewin, Romalisa Miranda, Ishac Cohen, Raluca D. Agafitei, John D. Friedman, and Daniel S. Berman for their article "Prediction of Myocardial Infarction Versus Cardiac Death by Gated Myocardial Perfusion SPECT: Risk Stratification by the Amount of Stress-Induced Ischemia and the Poststress Ejection Fraction," which appeared in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine in June of 2001. J. Nucl. Med. 2001 42: 831-837.
Under the basic science investigations, first prize went to: Jan B.A. Habraken, Kora deBruin, Morgan Shehata, Jan Booij, Roel Bennink, Berthe L.F. van Eck Smit, and Elinor Buemann Sokole for their article "Evaluation of High-Resolution Pinhole SPECT Using a Small Rotating Animal" which appeared in the December, 2001 issue of the JNM. J. Nucl. Med. 2001 42: 1863-1869 By using a rotating object and a fixed collimated camera head, the researchers have made the high-resolution SPECT imaging of small animals possible. The ability to use pinhole SPECT could have significant cost-saving benefits for research in regard to purchasing laboratory specimens.
Second prize went to Lars-Eric Adam, Joel S. Karp, Margaret E. Daube-Witherspoon, and Robin J. Smith For their article: "Performance of a Whole-Body PET Scanner Using Curve-Plate NaI(T1) Detectors," which also appeared in the December issue. J. Nucl. Med. 2001 42: 1821-1830
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