Thomas Wagner beside the QUADRA PET scanner at the Royal Free Hopspital
Thomas Wagner

A Royal Free London (RFL) doctor has been appointed to the nuclear medicine department’s first clinical academic role, opening up various new avenues for research.

Thomas Wagner, nuclear medicine consultant, has been working at the RFL since 2011, and has recently been appointed to the role of clinical academic between the UCL Department of Imaging, Centre for Medical Imaging, and the RFL.

The position will see Thomas continue in his consultant role for about 50% of his time, while the remainder will go towards developing research in the department.

A new QUADRA PET scanner, which was installed in March 2024, can deliver a much lower dose of radiation to patients, while scanning faster and producing better quality images. It will allow new avenues of research using PET scans to be carried out for the first time in new patient populations or with new tracers.

“The QUADRA scanner is revolutionary, and it is a first in the UK. We are now focusing more on research, with one of our physicists being appointed to another research role," Thomas said.

“It is an inflection point for the department to develop our own research. We were always doing it, but more in a supporting manner. Now with more time and resources and closer links to UCL, we can lead on our own projects and research. I’m really looking forward to be a part of that.

“Thanks to the generosity of the charity, the leadership and vision of Danny McCool, head of nuclear medicine, and the support from the trust management, we now have two PET CT scanners,” Thomas added.

Thomas is working towards a project using a new radiotracer in collaboration with the RFL kidney centre (the largest kidney cancer surgery site in the UK) and Professor Axel Bex, clinical lead of the Specialist Centre for Kidney Cancer at the RFH.

“We are hoping to get funding for this research study that would evaluate if this new tracer used on the QUADRA PET is more accurate to assess the extent of disease in patients with kidney cancer.

Danny McCool, head of nuclear medicine, said:

“We hope this is the start of a new journey for the department as we develop new scanning methods, and novel imaging agents.

“Research will give our patients access to the very best cutting edge diagnosis and care which is our ultimate aim.”