Weibo Cai - Biography#
Weibo Cai is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Radiology, Medical Physics, Materials Science & Engineering, and Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. He received a BS degree in Chemistry from Nanjing University, China (1995) and a PhD degree in Chemistry from University of California San Diego (2004). Between 2005 and 2008, Dr. Cai did post-doctoral research at the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford University. In February 2008, Dr. Cai joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a Biomedical Engineering Cluster Hire, and was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure in 2014, and Full Professor in 2018. Dr. Cai’s research at UW-Madison
is primarily focused on molecular imaging and nanobiotechnology. Dr. Cai has authored >450 peer-reviewed articles (with additional >20 manuscripts in the pipeline; total citation: >50,000 times; h-index: 116), edited 3 books (e.g. Springer, CRC Press), and given >400 talks.
Dr. Cai has served on the Editorial Board of >30 scientific journals (e.g. Theranostics, Journal of Nuclear Medicine, EJNMMI, Bioconjugate Chemistry, Exploration, etc.), and participated in many grant review panels (NIH, DOD, NSF, American Cancer Society, Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, Susan G. Komen, European Research Council, Canadian Cancer Society, Prostate Cancer Canada, >10 European countries, etc.). He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Nanobiotechnology (JNB
, impact factor 12.6, BMC/Springer Nature), and Deputy Editor of the EANM Journal. Dr. Cai is an active member of several scientific societies, and he has served on various committees in these societies such as SNMMI Committee on Awards, SNMMI Committee on Scientific Program, SNMMI Radiopharmaceutical Sciences Council (Past President), etc. What Dr. Cai is most proud of is that his trainees at UW - Madison have received >160 awards to date, such as 2012 Berson-Yalow Award from SNMMI, multiple Young Investigator Awards from SNMMI, several post-doctoral fellowships, among others. To date, more than 15 of Dr. Cai’s trainees (a total of ~80, from 13 countries) have started independent research groups at world-class universities (e.g. UW-Madison, Seoul National University, Purdue University, University of Utah, Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Nanjing University, etc.).
Dr. Cai has served various roles (e.g. consultant, collaborator, scientific advisor, chief scientific officer) for several industrial corporations. For example, he served on the Scientific Advisory Board of Focus-X Therapeutics, Inc. (a preclinical biotechnology company in New Jersey, founded in 2020 for development of radiopharmaceuticals), which was acquired by Full-Life Technologies (a Cayman company operated in China and Europe) for more than $200M in 2023.
