Victor Pike
Invited speaker “PET is Wonderful” 2022

Dr. Victor W. Pike received his B.Sc. (Hons) degree in chemistry from the University of Birmingham (UK) in 1972 and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the same University in 1975. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Birmingham University, he joined the MRC Cyclotron Unit (Imperial College, London) in 1978 at the foundation of its strong research program in positron emission tomography (PET), eventually becoming Head of its Chemistry and Engineering Section Dr. Pike has a strong personal interest in all chemical aspects of the discovery, development and evaluation of novel radioactive probes for molecular imaging with PET. Dr. Pike has received a Marie Curie Award, Springer Prize, and Michael J, Welch Award for his work in this area. He has co-authored about 350 peer reviewed scientific articles. He joined the Molecular Imaging Branch of NIMH in 2001 as Chief of the PET Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Section (PRSS).

Dr Pike?s Section is focused on developing novel radioactive probes (radiotracers) for the investigation of neuropsychiatric disorders with PET. This research mainly encompasses medicinal chemistry for probe discovery and radiochemistry for labelling candidate probes with a short-lived positron-emitter. In Dr. Pike’s laboratory, radiotracers for imaging and quantifying various protein targets (e.g., plaques, transporters, enzymes or neurotransmitter receptors) in brain are in development. The imaging targets have included A -amyloid plaque, TSPO (previously known as PBR) binding sites, the efflux transporter P-gp, the receptors mGluR5, mGluR1, CB1 and 5-HT1A, and the enzymes O-GlcNACase, PDE4D, PDE4B, COX-1 and COX-2. Development of methodology for radiolabeling with carbon-11 and fluorine-18 is key to successful radiotracer development and is a major component of the Section?s research.