I began my academic career following cardiology fellowship as junior faculty at Columbia University Medical Center where I helped start the Nuclear Cardiology laboratory which was one of the first laboratories to perform perfusion imaging and gated blood pool scintigraphy in NYC. I remained at CU for 18 years doing clinical research, involved in phase II and phase III trials of perfusion imaging agents such as sestamibi as well as early radiolabeled antibody clinical trials targeting myocardial necrosis in patients with acute MI. I also helped develop radiotracers using relevant animal models of ischemic heart disease, atherosclerosis, and cardiac transplantation. I left CU to go to University of Alabama at Birmingham as Director of Nuclear Cardiology and stayed for 2 years where I also did some work with the cardiac MRI program. From UAB I moved to Brown University/Rhode Island Hospital as Director of Nuclear Cardiology where I stayed for 10 years having the opportunity to also direct their preclinical imaging laboratory. In 2005 I returned to a faculty position at CU.
I have had a long interest to develop and apply novel imaging probes targeting sites in vasculature and myocardium that are important in clinical disease. I have performed preclinical experimental studies imaging myocardial tissue hypoxia, apoptosis, angiogenesis and RAGE expression. I have had a particular interest in imaging the vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque using radionuclide labeled probes in mouse and pig models of atherosclerosis, investigating uptake of tracers targeting apoptosis, metalloproteinase activation, expression of Receptor for Advanced Glycated Endproducts (RAGE), and selective VEGF receptor expression. With institutional support from the Department of Medicine and Division of Cardiology I set up a preclinical molecular imaging core laboratory that offers micro-CT, micro-SPECT/CT, and optical imaging resources for investigators with animals outside the barrier at Columbia University Health Sciences. I have had continuous NIH funding for about 20 years. I am currently PI (or co-PI) on two R01s: to using imaging to detect therapeutic effect of a novel antibody blocking RAGE to improve hind limb blood flow in a diabetic pig model of PAD, and in collaboration with the laboratory of Dr. Jeanine D'Armiento, to perform a phase II clinical trial of 99mTc rhAnnexin-128 (Advanced Accelerator Applications, France) to image lung apoptosis in patients with COPD under an individual IND (L Johnson). I have published over 100 papers.