Dr. James Basilion - Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School, and  Center for Molecular Imaging Research, Massachusetts General Hospital

James completed his BA in biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in 1984 and entered the doctoral program at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences,  University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.  Following his graduate studies James took a post-doctoral fellowship at NIH-NICHD in the Cell Biology and Metabolism Branch.  During his post-doctoral work he began a series of studies with investigators at the Center for Molecular Imaging at  MGH to exploit iron metabolism for molecular imaging.  This work resulted in the creation of a transgene and magnetic resonance imaging probes suitable for imaging gene transfer and changes in endogenous levels of internalizing receptors in vivo both non-invasively and in real time with MRI. 

In 1996 James left the NIH to take a position as a Senior Scientist at a small genomics/anti-cancer biotech company.  In 1999, James joined the Faculty of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital as an Assistant Professor of Radiology.  With the Director of the Center for Molecular Imaging, James formed the NFCR—Center For Molecular Analysis and Imaging and has been attempting to mine the rich genomic databases with an eye on informing molecular imaging technologies. 

Currently James heads a small group of PhDs and physicians that are attempting to identify informative markers and molecular signatures of disease and are developing imaging agents suitable to image simultaneous expression of multiple markers.  James is a member of several societies, has written numerous reviews on molecular imaging and genomics and holds editorships on three imaging or imaging related journals.