Gong Awarded NIH R01 Grant To Develop AI Methods for PET Imaging

Kuang Gong, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida, has been awarded a prestigious R01 grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). This grant will support his research project, “Deep Learning Methods for Improving Gallium 68-Based PET Imaging.”

Gong will lead this project as the principal investigator (PI), working alongside distinguished colleagues from UF, including Dr. Wesley Bolch, a UF Term Professor of Biomedical Engineering; Dr. Walter Drane, a professor and chief of nuclear medicine; and Dr. Bikram Karmakar, an assistant professor of statistics. The collaboration also includes experts from MD Anderson Cancer Center and Massachusetts General Hospital.

The research aims to enhance the quality of 68Ga-DOTATATE and 68Ga-PSMA-11 PET imaging, which are vital in diagnosing and managing neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) and prostate cancer (PCa). NETs, a diverse group of tumors with rising incidence rates, often go undetected in early stages, resulting in metastasis in 20% to 50% of patients by the time of diagnosis. PCa remains the most common solid-organ malignancy among men in the United States.

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