From Barriers to Breakthroughs: Advancing PET Tracers to Reveal Immune Dysfunction in CNS Diseases

Dr. James is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Radiology and Neurology, within the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford (MIPS). She received her BS in pharmacology and medicinal chemistry at the University of Sydney, where she also earned her PhD in pharmacology and was awarded the University Medal. She served as the co-chair of the World Molecular Imaging Congress in 2021 and has received numerous awards for her impactful research and mentoring, including the Suffrage Science Award from the Medical Research Council in the UK in 2016, the Exceptional Mentor Award from the American Medical Women’s Association in 2018, and the Roger Tsien Award for significant contributions to molecular imaging in the area of chemical biology in 2024.  For over twenty years her research has focused on developing new PET tracers for detecting immune cells in a range of diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and cancer. As part of her work, Dr. James has translated multiple tracers to the clinic, many of which are patented and being used in clinical imaging research studies at Stanford and around the world.