Oluwatayo (Tayo) Ikotun

Dr. Ikotun is a translational imaging scientist with multidisciplinary training and expertise that spans inorganic chemistry, radiochemistry, molecular imaging, and immuno-oncology. She earned her Ph.D., in bioinorganic chemistry at Syracuse University where she investigated the magnetic and biological properties of pyrophosphate bridged bimetallic complexes. Her work was the first to evaluate the potent anti-cancer properties and conduct an in-depth investigation of the mechanism by which these pro-drugs elicit cell death. She went on to receive her training in nuclear imaging as a postdoctoral associate at Washington University School of Medicine. As an American Cancer Society Fellow, she developed diagnostic imaging agents that exploited the enhanced vitamin demand and overexpression of cell surface receptors to non-invasively detect cancerous lesions. Following her academic training, she worked as an industry scientist at Amgen Inc. and Bristol-Myers Squibb. During her six-year tenure in biotechnology/pharma she served as the subject matter expert for immuno-oncology and inflammation imaging and directly applied molecular imaging to drug discovery and development. This diverse experience has shaped her belief that molecular imaging has a key role to play in our understanding of disease biology, drug pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and is instrumental for elucidating the mechanisms of action of novel therapeutics in living subjects.