2002 Seaborg Award: Joanna S. Fowler

Award Statement C&EN (Pages 4-5)

Fowler, 59, received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of South Florida, Tampa, in 1964, and a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1967 from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

It is rare for the work of one scientist to have important repercussions in several fields of research, but that is the case with Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) Senior Chemist Joanna S. Fowler. She has made a variety of contributions to the synthesis of organic compounds labeled with radioactive isotopes and has used those labeled compounds for innovative radiotracer research—work that has had impact in chemistry biology and medicine.

Of special note are Fowler’s contributions to the synthesis of ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) in l976, which accelerated the growth of positron emission tomography (PET) research and is now the most widely used PET tracer in the world. The basic and clinical impact of FDG has mostly been in the clinical neurosciences and in the diagnosis and evaluation of cancer, but it also has an important role in the evaluation of cardiac viability.

Fowler’s work with ¹¹C-cocaine is recognized for providing the first assessment of the pharmacokinetics of cocaine in the human brain. Along with her colleague Nora Volkow, she has shown that the major binding site for ¹¹C-cocaine in humans is the basal ganglia and that it is the rapid entrance of cocaine into the brain that is a major factor in its reinforcing effects.

Fowler’s approach to mapping human brain monoamine oxidase (MAO) led to the first direct measurement of the turnover rate of ΜΑΟ-Β in the living brain. She has used PET tracers to learn that smokers have greatly reduced brain MAO-A and Β levels, which could result in enhanced activity of dopamine and decreased production of hydrogen peroxide. It supports work suggesting that ΜΑΟ-Β inhibition may play a role in the behavioral and epidemiological effects of smoking. The work was cited as one of the “Top 100” science stories of 1996 by Discover magazine.

The chemical challenge in this work is the extremely rapid incorporation of suitable, short-lived positron-emitting nuclides—such as ¹¹C and ¹⁸F—into complex organic compounds that can be used as probes for specific biological targets. Fowler has pioneered basic techniques for synthesis with radioisotopes that overcome the strict limitations imposed by the short half-lives of these nuclides on the synthetic methods that can be used.

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