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alexander-hammers

Professor Alexander Hammers

Head of the PET Centre and Professor of Imaging and Neuroscience 

Research interests

  • Imaging sciences

Biography

Alexander Hammers, a Neurologist with a particular interest in epilepsy, is Professor (Honorary Consultant) of Imaging and Neuroscience and Head of the King’s College London & Guy’s and St Thomas’ PET Centre at St Thomas’ Hospital. Other roles include Deputy Director of the Centre for Medical Engineering. He obtained an MD from the RWTH Aachen, Germany, in MR imaging of the hippocampus and a PhD from the University of London in PET investigations in focal epilepsy.

His research area is medical imaging, in particular functional neuroimaging with quantified Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to understand mechanisms of neurological disease. Another area is structural neuroimaging using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and anatomical segmentation using a large manually annotated brain atlas database which his group has created over the past two decades. The main areas of application of his research are the epilepsies and neurodegenerative diseases, as well as methodological developments. The ultimate goal is to benefit individual patients through the clinical application of neuroscience. Examples include classification with machine-learning (artificial intelligence) techniques, and the combination of MRI and PET.

He is affiliated with several professional organisations, has won several distinctions, is a sought-after teacher, and reviews frequently for numerous journals and grant-giving bodies. He is an author on about 300 articles, conference proceedings, and book chapters (Google Scholar).

    News

    UK launches first national Total-Body PET platform for drug discovery

    The National PET Imaging Platform (NPIP) will bring together data from two state-of-the-art total-body PET imaging scanners located at St Thomas’ Hospital,...

    NPIP Graphic 02

    Double vaccination halves risk of Long COVID

    Adults who have received a double vaccination are 49% less likely to have Long COVID should they contract a COVID-19 infection.

    A women receives a vaccine

    New Scientist Live 2021: The Future of Healthcare

    The School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging took part in New Scientist Live 2021: The Future of Healthcare

    nsl story banner

    The Future of Health, New Scientist Live 2021

    The School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences is back at the UK's largest sciences festival, New Scientist Live

    nsl story banner

    New database of healthy adult human brain PET, MRI and CT images is now available for research

    A new multi-modal database of healthy adult human brain scans has recently been made available for research.

    figure1final

    New PETtrace cyclotron enables more reliable in-house production of FDG tracer for use in cancer scanning

    The PET Centre has launched its new PETtrace cyclotron to reliably produce fluoride-18 for PET scanning.

    The PETtrace cyclotron in the lab

      News

      UK launches first national Total-Body PET platform for drug discovery

      The National PET Imaging Platform (NPIP) will bring together data from two state-of-the-art total-body PET imaging scanners located at St Thomas’ Hospital,...

      NPIP Graphic 02

      Double vaccination halves risk of Long COVID

      Adults who have received a double vaccination are 49% less likely to have Long COVID should they contract a COVID-19 infection.

      A women receives a vaccine

      New Scientist Live 2021: The Future of Healthcare

      The School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging took part in New Scientist Live 2021: The Future of Healthcare

      nsl story banner

      The Future of Health, New Scientist Live 2021

      The School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences is back at the UK's largest sciences festival, New Scientist Live

      nsl story banner

      New database of healthy adult human brain PET, MRI and CT images is now available for research

      A new multi-modal database of healthy adult human brain scans has recently been made available for research.

      figure1final

      New PETtrace cyclotron enables more reliable in-house production of FDG tracer for use in cancer scanning

      The PET Centre has launched its new PETtrace cyclotron to reliably produce fluoride-18 for PET scanning.

      The PETtrace cyclotron in the lab