Professor Michael O'Doherty
Professor of Clinical PET & Nuclear Medicine
Email: michael.o'doherty@kcl.ac.uk
Qualifications
BA Natural Sciences (Cambridge),
MA (Cambridge),MBBS London, MRCP London,
MSc London, MD London, FRCP, FRCR
Research interests
My current interest is in acquisition and analysis of PET/CT data and its application to oncology; neurology; cardiology, inflammation and infection. I am particularly interested in measurement of disease response to intervention.
My research interests are in the physics, chemistry and clinical applications of unsealed source imaging and therapy. My early work focused on the application of radiotracers in the assessment of lung pathophysiology, immunosuppressed patient (infection and tumour development.), novel tracers in functional imaging, FDG PET in diagnosis, staging and response assessment of tumours and radiation protection issues (staff, patients and relatives). The development of quantitative measurement of lung permeability in health and disease, as part of my MD, led to the introduction of the test clinically for the assessment of patients with HIV and pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and more recently the role in fibrosing alveolitis.
A key interest has been to develop imaging to assess both tumour stage and response to chemotherapy in lymphoma and to ensure that functional imaging has been incorporated into multicentre trials . I have also had a key interest in radiation safety related to patients, patient’s relatives and staff, these publications have influenced British and European regulations. Linked to the research with radionuclides has been the desire to introduce new tracers and the introduction by our group of sestamibi to the UK for parathyroid localisation and the kinetics of its uptake has provided the clinical community with a method for localisation of this tissue and most recently has led to a limited surgical approach for removal of this tissue. This method has involved me in developing guidelines for parathyroid imaging and the invitation to write editorials and review articles and book chapters. A further development in single photon work was the introduction of new tracers for imaging cancer and the measurement of drug deposition.
Over the years our group has published on the role of PET and PETCT in a variety of cancers and in particular evaluated optimum timing of uptake of FDG and response assessment. We have also developed the methodology for guided biopsy of sites containing the most avid tracer uptake which will link with our future work relating cancer pathways to tracer uptake. The PET Centre team have been pivotal in the establishment of a UK network of centres to provide centres working to the same Quality Assurance and Quality control for PET research throughout the UK. Through this network I have played a key role in the multicentre PET trials in lymphoma that are ongoing within the UK and most recently this network has extended to European and Australian centres participating in a multinational lymphoma study. The French GELA group with ourselves and a European group of oncologists and imagers agreed our standards for reporting of lymphoma response in clinical trials. This adopted the methods we proposed for the RATHL (response adapted therapy in Hodgkin’s Lymphoma) study.
PET plays a pivotal role in disease assessment and in particular within cancer. Further work is taking place linking genomics and PET signatures in a variety of cancers. None of this is possible without a team effort and of course facilities. I am fortunate to have some outstanding colleagues with whom I work.
Group Members
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Paul Schleyer - Started PhD 2006
Respiratory motion correction of PETCT data
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M Swampili - PhD 2009 (UCL/KCL Cancer Imaging Centre)
Molecular Radiotherapy
Teaching responsibility
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Lecture on postgraduate MSc and MRes within Imaging Sciences and Oncology
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Lectures on BSc in Imaging Sciences
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External lectures
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Teaching postgraduates in radiology and Nuclear Medicine Clinical PET and Nuclear Medicine
NHS liaison and relationships
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Royal College of Physicians Regional Specialty Adviser in Nuclear Medicine - 1997 -
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Member of the PETCT UK Board - 2005 -
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Member of the RCP Nuclear Medicine Committee - 2006 -
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Member of the Radionuclide Radiology Committee RCR - 2007 -
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Member of ARSAC - 2006 -
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Chairman of research committee in ARSAC - 2008 -
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Member of the NCRI PET research in oncology steering committee - 2007 -
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Executive committee for the Comprehensive Cancer Centre UCL and KCL - 2008 -
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CRUK representative at the EORTC Imaging Group - 2009 -
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