Building on more than a decade of innovation that has made UCLA a global leader in molecular imaging and targeted radiopharmaceutical therapy, UCLA Health has established the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Theranostics — the first of its kind in the United States. The new department will drive the next generation of discovery and patient-centered care by integrating advanced imaging and therapy, accelerating scientific discovery and advancing precision health at UCLA Health.
The Department of Nuclear Medicine and Theranostics will broaden its clinical services, create new research and training opportunities, and deepen its collaborations across UCLA Health, the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. Plans include expanding theranostic clinical programs, developing new educational pathways and growing research partnerships that bridge basic science, engineering and clinical medicine.
“Nuclear medicine is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by advances in imaging technology and the development of novel radiopharmaceuticals that allow us to visualize and treat disease with unprecedented precision,” said Dr. Johannes Czernin, who has been appointed acting chair of the new department. “Becoming an independent department elevates this work and strengthens UCLA’s role in shaping the future of precision health.”
Originating within the Ahmanson Translational Theranostics Division in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, the new department builds on a strong foundation of clinical excellence, basic and translational research, radiochemistry and multidisciplinary collaboration. The new department includes nuclear medicine clinics, a state-of-the-art outpatient theranostics program and clinic, a biomedical cyclotron and radiochemistry operations, preclinical research laboratories and a large clinical research group with its own clinical research coordinators.
“Establishing this department highlights UCLA’s national leadership in nuclear medicine and theranostics and reflects our commitment to advancing discovery that improves patient outcomes,” said Czernin. “This milestone is the result of years of dedication from our faculty, trainees, preclinical scientists, clinicians and staff, whose work is redefining what is possible in modern medicine.”
Today, noninvasive, whole-body imaging—especially through PET—allows clinicians to visualize molecular targets in real time, providing an unprecedented level of precision and personalization in diagnosis and treatment. These advances are now improving outcomes for patients with cancer, as well as with neurological, cardiovascular, infectious and inflammatory diseases.
At UCLA, these breakthroughs have been propelled from the laboratory to the clinic, where physician-scientists are pioneering radiopharmaceutical development and leading multicenter clinical trials that are transforming patient care worldwide.
In 2018, Dr. Jeremie Calais, director of the new department’s clinical research program, joined forces with a team at UCSF led by Dr. Tom Hope, to test an imaging technique for diagnosing prostate cancer at the whole-body level where the tumors have migrated. The researchers showed that PSMA PET detected significantly more prostate lesions than conventional imaging in patients with recently diagnosed and more advanced prostate cancer. In 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the diagnostic test for men with prostate cancer.
Together with Dr. Abe Delpassand, founder and CEO of Radiomedix, Calais led a phase II clinical trial testing the safety and efficacy of the radiopharmaceutical therapy, Lutetium-177 vipivotide tetraxetan (Pluvicto). It was later licensed by Novartis and approved by the FDA, covered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and included in the National Comprehensive Cancer Network prostate cancer guidelines for the treatment of adult patients with advanced metastatic prostate cancer who are resistant to other therapies. Since then, approved indications have expanded significantly.
“As we move into this next chapter, I am inspired by the collaborative spirit of our teams and the extraordinary potential of this science,” Czernin said. “Together, we are building a future in which imaging and therapy converge to offer more precise and more personal care for every patient.”
The Department of Nuclear Medicine and Theranostics will include Ahmanson Translational Theranostics Division preclinical and clinical faculty members, technologists, nurses, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, research associates, project scientists and others, and will officially launch as an independent department on Jan. 1, 2026.