Tim Smith

Dr Tim Smith was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in Nuclear Medicine in the Nuclear Futures Institute at Bangor University in 2023. His research interests include molecular imaging, molecular radiotherapy and gene expression-based biomarkers.

After obtaining a PhD in Radiobiology from the University of Manchester (UMIST), Tim was as a Clinical Scientist in Nuclear Medicine at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton. Here he ran a biochemistry laboratory specialising in radionuclide-based patient assessments. He also developed preclinical and back-translational research studies into molecular imaging techniques for monitoring breast cancer treatment response using ³¹P-Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and ¹⁸F-Fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose positron emission tomography (PET).           

Tim then went onto a post-doctoral post at the University of York developing and patented a novel protein technetium labelling method. He was then appointed as a PET Radiochemist at the John Mallard PET Centre at the University of Aberdeen. Here he developed functionalised nanoparticles for imaging and for molecular radiotherapy. He was also part of the PET tracer production team. In 2019 Tim moved to the Translation Radiobiology Group at the University of Manchester where he validated gene expression biomarkers for clinical trials. He also established discovery studies for identifying cell surface molecules on hypoxic cancers for targeting with imaging and treatment tracers.  He holds an honorary post at the University of Manchester.