Simon Cherry, Ph.D
College of Engineering, School of Medicine
Medical Imaging
NIH-Funded Research Transforming Medical imaging
At UC Davis, Simon Cherry has spent decades pioneering breakthroughs in medical imaging. With NIH support, he and his colleague Ramsey Badawi developed EXPLORER — the world’s first total-body PET scanner — capable of imaging the entire human body at once. This revolutionary technology, which thousands of patients across the US have benefitted from, produces clearer images with lower radiation doses, faster scan times, and the potential to detect disease earlier and guide more effective treatments.
Helping Humanity
Cherry’s work is transforming how we diagnose and treat conditions from cancer to heart disease. But without sustained federal funding, early-stage innovations like EXPLORER may never reach the patients who need them most. Federal support makes it possible to develop new technologies from the ground up — laying the foundation for tools that transform clinical care. Investing in imaging research means empowering earlier detection, more accurate diagnoses and better patient outcomes.
“Without federal funding, the innovations that let us see disease earlier and treat it more effectively simply wouldn’t exist.”
—Simon Cherry