Congratulations to St Hugh’s Fellow by Resolution in Physics and alumnus, Dr Jack Miller (Physics, 2007), who has been awarded the Gold Medal in Academia by the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM). This award is given to a member with a substantial and sustained track record at an outstanding level of contribution to advancement of academic practice, related to physics and engineering applied to medicine and biology.
The IPEM Committee provided the following feedback on Dr Miller’s award: ‘A hugely impressive career – thank you for your outstanding contribution to the world of Physics. Very impressive candidate with a great amount of achievements in a relatively short period of time.’
Commenting on his Gold Medal in Academia award, Dr Miller said, ‘Life, for a physicist, is odd: it appears to create order in a universe where disorder always increases. For the last fifteen years, I have been lucky enough to be part of a small but internationally significant group of scientists who have used a technique called dissolution Dynamic Nuclear Polarisation (DNP) to image the chemical reactions that energetically power life, which collectively are known as metabolism. These reactions are complex, but dynamic – they change as you wake, feed or exercise – and they have been known for many decades to be altered in diseases ranging from cancer to heart failure. DNP permits some metabolites to be transiently visible to specialised forms of MRI scan, imaging both where these molecules go, and, crucially, what they become and interconvert into.
‘This award by IPEM is a huge honour and belongs not just to me but to the wider community of clinicians and scientists of all ages that I have been lucky to enough work with. I have played a small part of the journey of DNP from condensed matter physics laboratories and particle physics experiments to international clinical trials studying hugely relevant human diseases in different continents. It is a great accolade to be told by my peers that what I do is both unashamedly both excellent physics in its own right and highly medically relevant. From a physics perspective, DNP still holds many secrets that are not yet fully understood, but as a useful technique it has already shone light on the mechanisms of disease, quantified physiology in species from people to pythons, and helped us understand drugs from essential medicines to novel compounds in clinical trials. As a radiological technique, It offers the promise to transform the treatment of patients in the future. For example, directly imaging metabolism could let us see if a chemotherapy is working potentially hours after its administration; or if a patient with potentially life-limiting cardiac complaints would benefit from an aggressive intervention – questions that, at the moment, are difficult to objectively and rapidly assess in the clinic. I am overjoyed to receive this medal, which I hope also celebrates a very long history of physicists making sustained and substantial contributions to healthcare.’
