Richard L. Wahl, M.D., is the Director of Nuclear Medicine/PET and Vice Chair of New Technology and Business Development in the Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science. Dr. Wahl was most recently director of general nuclear imaging at the University of Michigan Medical Center, where he conducted the research that led to his international reputation.

Dr. Wahl was one of the first in the world and the first in the United States to prove that PET could accurately diagnose breast cancer, melanoma and ovarian cancer, and that it was superior to CT in staging lung cancer. Dr. Wahl has helped translate the PET "metabolic biopsy" into clinical practice for a diverse array of human cancers.

In the area of cancer treatment, Dr. Wahl has worked more than 20 years to develop "smart radiopharmaceuticals," those that target tumor, not tissue. He can be called an inventor of radioimmunotherapy of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, holding multiple patents on a number of such substances. The most notable and clinically successful of these is under FDA review for possible fast-track approval in early 2001 for use against lymphoma.

Dr. Wahl graduated summa cum laude in chemistry from Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. He received his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and completed his internship at the University of California at San Diego. Dr. Wahl returned to St. Louis and Washington University to perform his residency in diagnostic radiology at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology. He also concurrently completed two fellowships there: the first in nuclear medicine at the Mallinckrodt Institute; the second, in immunology research in the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Jewish Hospital.

Dr. Wahl went to the University of Michigan in 1983 as an assistant professor of medicine and radiology and co-director of nuclear imaging. In 1987, he became an associate professor and director of nuclear imaging, a title he retained through September 2000; in 1990, he was promoted to professor of internal medicine and radiology; and in 1996, he added the title of director of the radiopharmaceutical program of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. In September 2000 he came to Johns Hopkins.

He is board-certified in diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine, with special competency certification in nuclear radiology.

Dr. Wahl has published more than 200 journal articles, 23 book chapters and one book; has been an invited lecturer at more than 400 conferences worldwide; serves on the editorial boards of four scientific journals; is a reviewer for more than a dozen government services, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and the Department of Energy; and holds eight patents. His honors and awards are too numerous to list in full, but include life memberships on the American Board of Nuclear Medicine (Chairman, 1998) and the Experimental Immunology Study Section of the NIH (1990-94); listings in the Best Doctors in America and Who's Who in America and the World; service as president of the Institute for Clinical PET (1995-96); and duties as plenary lecturer at several recent international conferences, including the Marie Curie Plenary Lecturer at the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (1998). He also delivered the "New Horizons Lecture" at the 1999 meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

Dr. Wahl plays an active role in the production of PET radiopharmaceuticals, clinical PET services and PET research projects at Johns Hopkins Medicine.