Speaker: Kevin J. Chung, PhD, American Heart Association (AHA) Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Radiology at UC Davis Health

Bio: Kevin J. Chung, PhD, is an American Heart Association (AHA) Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Radiology at UC Davis Health, supervised by Drs. Guobao Wang and Simon Cherry. He obtained his PhD in Medical Biophysics from Western University
(London, Canada) in 2023 under the supervision of Dr. Ting-Yim Lee, where he optimized brain CT perfusion imaging for acute ischemic stroke. At UC Davis, he has developed novel total-body PET kinetic modeling approaches for quantitative imaging of blood flow across the body with 18F-FDG and blood-brain barrier permeability at the molecular level. His AHA fellowship focuses on developing total-body multiparametric PET tools for investigating the brain-heart axis, and more broadly, he is interested in developing methods to elucidate how the brain and body are functionally interconnected. Kevin’s work has been recognized with several early career awards, including the ISCBFM Niels Lassen Award at the 2025 Brain and Brain PET Conference.

Abstract: The recent advent of total-body PET is enabling new imaging opportunities with its order-of-magnitude increase in signal sensitivity and unique ability to dynamically image the entire body at once. Our work is pushing the boundaries of high-temporal resolution dynamic imaging to enable total-body multiparametric PET, overcoming limitations of conventional single-parametric PET imaging. Here we describe how we are exploiting the high performance of this new technology for quantitative imaging across scales and systems – from measuring blood flow across the entire body to blood-brain barrier permeability at the molecular level. We then show the potential of total-body PET for opportunistic studies of inter-organ connections, such as blood-brain barrier dysregulation in systemic liver disease. Our work builds toward a powerful human imaging platform for more comprehensively characterizing health and disease from a systems perspective.

This is a Special BrainMap seminar.

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