Towards molecular imaging and treatment of disease with radionuclides: the role of inorganic chemistry

After studying Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, Phil Blower carried out his graduate research in transition-metal chemistry with Jon Dilworth at the AFRC Unit of Nitrogen Fixation, University of Sussex, receiving his DPhil in 1984. He then joined the group of Malcolm Chisholm at Indiana University on a Fulbright Scholarship, later returning to England to work with Stephen Cooper at the Inorganic Chemical Laboratory, Oxford University. In 1987 he moved to Canterbury and joined the National Health Service, accepting a joint position as Clinical Radiochemist with Kent and Canterbury Hospital ( Nuclear Medicine Dept) and the University for Kent (Biosciences Dept). There, with the collaboration of interdisciplinary colleagues in medicine, medical physics, chemistry and biochemistry, he was able to combine his inorganic chemistry training with experience of clinical radiopharmacy and nuclear medicine, developing research programmes in coordination chemistry, radiochemistry ( especially with rhenium and copper isotopes), bioconjugate synthesis and clinical investigation of novel radiopharmaceuticals, including some of the earliest clinical evaluations of rhenium-186 and rhenium-188 therapeutic agents. He was recently appointed Professor of Imaging Chemistry at King's College, University of London, and works closely with the Clinical PET Centre at St Thomas' Hospital.