Reston, Virginia (June
27, 2025)
The SNMMI Mars
Shot Research Fund is pleased to announce that Vikas Prasad, MD, PhD, associate
professor of radiology at WashU Medicine Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology
(MIR), has been selected as the recipient of a $100,000 Early Detection of Prostate Cancer
grant. The grant
was awarded based on his proposal, “Boosting
PSMA Expression for Precision Detection of Local Residual Disease and
Metastases Pre-Radiation Therapy.”
Prostate
cancer is the most frequently diagnosed non-skin cancer in men. If diagnosed at
an early stage, prostate cancer can be cured by radical prostatectomy and/or
radiation therapy. That is where the role of prostate-specific membrane antigen
(PSMA) PET has become critical, specifically in biochemical recurrence (BCR)
and salvage setting of prostate cancer. However, in BCR/salvage therapy
patients with low PSA (i.e., PSA < 1.0 ng/ml), PSMA PET is unable to detect
lesions in 24%-40% of the patients.
“Several
strategies for increasing lesion detection have been investigated, but designing
a prospective clinical trial to address such a complex clinical scenario is
extremely challenging, because detection of lesions on PSMA PET can be
influenced by many different factors,” said Prasad, who serves as director of
MIR’s radiopharmaceutical therapy program and co-director of clinical
theranostics for Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU
Medicine. “The ideas investigated in this study will help fill a critical gap
in the treatment of these prostate cancer patients, and I am hopeful that it
will ultimately lead to a new therapeutic option for this difficult-to-manage
malignancy.”
Prasad has
more than 22 years of experience as a nuclear medicine physician. He specializes
in radiopharmaceutical therapy (RPT) with radiolabeled peptides and antibodies to
treat various types of disease. His additional research focuses on optimization
of dosimetry methods, evaluation of blood-based biomarkers, novel PET and SPECT
tracers, and image segmentation and integration of blood-based biomarkers in
RPTs. Prasad received both his Dr.med (research thesis based, to be able to use
“Dr’ title in Germany) and his PhD (Habilitation) from Charité–University Hospital Berlin, Germany.
The SNMMI
Mars Shot Research Fund, established in 2023, is a forward-looking glimpse into the future of nuclear medicine. It
provides resources that translate visionary nuclear medicine imaging,
radiopharmaceutical therapy, and data science research or projects into tools
or treatments that will help improve the lives of patients. The Mars Shot
Research Fund acknowledges the generous donation from Telix and other donors in
support of the Early Detection of Prostate Cancer Mars Shot Research Grant.
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About the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
The Society of Nuclear
Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) is an international scientific and
medical organization dedicated to advancing nuclear medicine, molecular
imaging, and theranostics—precision medicine that allows diagnosis and
treatment to be tailored to individual patients in order to achieve the best
possible outcomes. For more information, visit snmmi.org.