Staff

Mohammed Parvez Bhuiyan, Ph.D. is the Facility’s lead radiochemist and Associate Director.  Dr. Bhuiyan received his Master’s Degree at the University of Rajshahi in Bangladesh.  He then continued his education and received a Ph.D. at the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan.  After that, he worked and collaborated at a number of institutes: the Department of Chemistry at the University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh; the Graduate School of Life Science and Systems Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan; the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Germany.  He came to the United States and worked for two years in the Department of Radiology and Molecular Imaging at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit Michigan.  He continued his research in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Utah State University in Logan Utah working with Liaohai Chen, Ph.D.  He joined the University of Chicago in 2016.  Dr. Bhuiyan’s research interests are wide-ranging.  He has done work in nanoparticle fabrication and labeling, colorimetric assay development, synthetic and organic chemistry, MRI and fluorescence imaging contrast agents, and finally small molecule labeling with PET and SPECT radionuclides.

Lucas Gonzalez, B.S. is our most recent addition to our staff.  Lucas has a degree in Chemical Engineering (2016) from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.  After receiving his degrees, he enlisted in the Navy where he served for 5 1/2 years.  He was Electronics Technician Nuclear, 1st Class.  He trained on MTS635, one of the oldest high pressure reactors still in service.  From there, he was stationed on the USS Theodore Roosevelt (aircraft carrier) CVN71 out of San Diego.  He was a qualified reactor operator and reactor technician on the ship’s A4W reactor (the ship has two reactors).  He was deployed twice to the 7th Fleet (South China Seas) with Carrier Strike Group 9.  After that, the ship’s home port was changed to Bremerton, WA where he participated in overhauling the ship’s rod control system.  He was honorably discharged in August 2022.  He moved back to the Chicago area and joined the Cyclotron Facility in April 2023.  His move from the Navy to Radiopharmaceutical Product and Quality Assurance/Control has been seamless.

Dr. Kaustab Ghosh is the newest member of our Facility.  Dr. Ghosh received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Calcutta where he focused on radiometals.  He worked at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics after his Ph.D.  He then moved to the Delft Institute of Technology in the Netherlands for a year.  There his work focused on ¹⁶⁶Ho production used with microspheres for the treatment of patients with liver cancer.  He continued his overseas experience at RIKEN in Japan, where he worked for just under a year and a half.  He used his experience in radiometals to work on the production of  ²¹¹At and other solid target isotopes.  He then returned to India and was involved in clinical production of drugs with a private company.  His work included running the cyclotron, Quality Control, and production of drugs.  He joined our Facility in June of 2021.

Aytekin Oto, M.D., M.B.A. is the Chair of the Department of Radiology and Professor of Radiology and Surgery.  He is also Chief Physician of the University of Chicago Medicine Physicians, Dean for Clinical Affairs at the University of Chicago and head of the faculty practice plan.  Since taking over the Chairmanship, he has become integrally involved in the operations, budgeting, management, planning and the programmatic goals of the Facility.  His research interests in MRI imaging of the prostate, liver, and bowel are excellent adjuncts to many of the Cyclotron Facility’s programmatic goals.  

David Paushter, M.D., FACR, is the past Chair of the Department of Radiology.  His support was critical to re-establishing the Facility.    Dr. Paushter worked to establish internal and external advisory committees and helped to make not only the UChicago medical community aware of the Cyclotron Facility but also the medical community in the greater Chicago area.