Simon Williams

Senior Scientist, Biomedical Imaging

POSTDOC MENTOR

"There is a great satisfaction in advancing [the] cause by pursuing scientific truth. It's great to be able to do that with so many talented and motivated friends and colleagues."

• 18
  years at Genentech
• 7
  publications (2010-12)
• 3
  awards & honors

I joined Genentech's Neuroscience group in 1995 to help establish magnetic resonance imaging as a tool for the Research organization.

I was attracted to the proactive commitment Genentech showed to acquiring and then applying new technologies to interesting biomedical problems. After diverse projects in brain, heart, vascular, developmental, lipid, tumor and other physiologic imaging with MRI, I turned my attention to the challenges of molecular imaging, first with single-photon (SPECT), and more recently with positron emission tomography (PET).

• My Focus

  My lab is busy developing and using whole-body molecular imaging methods focused on three basic questions of targeted therapies: "where is my target," "where is my drug," and "what happened when my drug hit the target?" We have projects in oncology, the immune system, cell death, and angiogenesis.

  My time is split between guiding translational efforts with established methods that inform clinical decision-making on the one hand, and exploratory research trying to identify and exploit new molecular imaging methods on the other.

• Publications

  • ImmunoPET imaging of phosphatidylserine in pro-apoptotic therapy treated tumor models

    Nuclear Medicine and Biology, 2012, ISSN: 0969-8051

    Ogasawara, Annie; Tinianow, Jeff N; Vanderbilt, Alexander N; Gill, Herman S; Yee, Sharon; Flores, Judith E; Williams, Simon-Peter; Ashkenazi, Avi; Marik, Jan

     View on PubMed

  • Pharmacokinetics and Biodistribution of a Human Monoclonal Antibody to Oxidized LDL in Cynomolgus Monkey Using PET Imaging

    PLoS ONE, 2012, ISSN: 1932-6203

    Kamath, Amrita V; Williams, Simon P; Bullens, Sherry; Cowan, Kyra J; Stenberg, Yvonne; Cherry, Simon R; Rendig, Stephen; Kukis, David L; Griesemer, Chris; Damico-Beyer, Lisa A; Bunting, Stuart

     View on PubMed

  • FDG-PET is a good biomarker of both early response and acquired resistance in BRAFV600 mutant melanomas treated with vemurafenib and the MEK inhibitor GDC-0973

    European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Research, 2012, ISSN:

    Baudy, Andreas; Dogan, Taner; Flores-Mercado, Judith; Hoeflich, Klaus; Su, Fei; Van Bruggen, Nicholas; Williams, Simon

     View on PubMed

  • Tissue Distribution Studies of Protein Therapeutics Using Molecular Probes: Molecular Imaging

    Journal of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, 2012, ISSN: 1550-7416

    Williams, Simon-Peter;

     View on PubMed

  • Quantitation of glucose uptake in tumors by dynamic FDG-PET has less glucose bias and lower variability when adjusted for partial saturation of glucose transport.

    EJNMMI Research, 2012, ISSN:

    Simon-Peter Williams; Judith E Flores-Mercado; Ruediger E Port; Thomas Bengtsson

     View on PubMed

  • Effects of anti-VEGF on pharmacokinetics, biodistribution and tumor penetration of trastuzumab in a preclinical breast cancer model

    Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, 5 Jan 2012, ISSN: 1538-8514

    Cinthia V. Pastuskovas; Eduardo E. Mundo; Simon P. Williams; Tapan K. Nayak; Jason Ho; Sheila Ulufatu; Suzanna Clark; Sarajane Ross; Eric Cheng; Kathryn Parsons-Reponte; Gary Cain; Marjie Van Hoy; Nicholas Majidy; Sheila Bheddah; Josefa dela Cruz Chuh; Katherine R. Kozak; Nicholas Lewin-Koh; Peter Nauka; Daniela Bumbaca; Mark Sliwkowski; Jay Tibbitts; Frank-Peter Theil; Paul J. Fielder; Leslie A. Khawli; and C. Andrew Boswell

     View on PubMed

  • The Development of Peptide-Based Tools for the Analysis of Angiogenesis

    Chemistry & biology, {Chem-Biol}, 29 Jul 2011, vol. 18, no. 7, p. 839-45, ISSN: 1879-1301.

    Fedorova, Anna; Zobel, Kerry; Gill, Herman S; Ogasawara, Annie; Flores, Judith E; Tinianow, Jeff N; Vanderbilt, Alexander N; Wu, Ping; Meng, Y Gloria; Williams, Simon P; Wiesmann, Christian; Murray, Jeremy; Marik, Jan; Deshayes, Kurt

     View on PubMed

• Education
  • University of Cambridge, U.K., Research Fellow – 1995
  • University of Manchester, U.K., Research Fellow – 1993
  • University of Oxford, U.K., D.Phil. – 1992
  • University of Oxford, U.K., Biochemistry, special option in Computer Science, B.A. (Natural Sciences) – 1986
• Awards & Honors
  • Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Welcome Trust – 1992-1995
  • Texas Instruments Computing Scholarship – 1988-1990
  • Green College Graduate Award – 1988-1991