The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) announces the recipients of the 2020-2022 SNMMI Wagner-Torizuka Fellowship. This two-year fellowship, founded in 2008 by the late Henry N. Wagner, Jr., MD, and the late Kanji Torizuka, MD, PhD, is designed to provide extensive training and experience in the fields of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging for Japanese physicians in the early stages of their careers.

“SNMMI is pleased to sponsor the Wagner-Torizuka Fellowship in support of the worldwide advancement of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging. The program has provided invaluable experience for many rising nuclear medicine and molecular imaging professionals over the years, equipping them to make significant contributions to the field in Japan,” says Satoshi Minoshima, MD, PhD, FSNMMI, past president and chair of the SNMMI Awards Committee.

The 2020-2022 fellows, each receiving an annual stipend of $24,000, are:

  • Masatoshi Hotta, MD, National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Tokyo. Hotta’s research interests include PET/CT and SPECT/CT and the essential role they play in image-based treatment planning and dosimetry for theranostics. He is a visiting researcher in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology in the Ahmanson Translational Theranostics Division at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, under the supervision of Johannes Czernin, MD.
  • Yuichi Wakabayashi, MD, PhD, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. Wakabayashi’s research focuses on the utilization of PET/CT to localize and quantify specific proteins in the living brain. He is continuing his studies at the National Institutes of Health Molecular Imaging Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health under the supervision of Robert Innis, MD, PhD.
  • Keiichiro Kuronuma, MD, PhD, Nihon University Hospital, Tokyo. Kuronuma’s current research interestes include PET imaging using 18F-Flurpiridaz and artificial intelligence technology in medicine. He will study in the Department of Imaging at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, under the supervision of Daniel S. Berman, MD.


The SNMMI Wagner-Torizuka Fellowship program, sponsored by Nihon Medi-Physics Co., Ltd., in Japan, has successfully graduated 30 fellows since its inauguration in 2008; currently, three fellows are studying at host institutions across the United States.

Applications and further information about requirements for the 2021-2023 SNMMI Wagner-Torizuka Fellowship are available online at www.snmmi.org/grants. Applications are due by January 31, 2021. For more information about these and other scholarships, visit www.snmmi.org/grants or contact the SNMMI Development Department at (703) 652-6780 or at Grants&[email protected].