David Schlyer

A tenured Senior Scientist and Chair of the Medical Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory’s, David Schlyer, Ph.D., has worked on a variety of projects during his more than 30 years at the BNL.

Awarded his B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of California at Riverside in 1971 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California at San Diego in 1976, Dr. Schlyer then came to BNL’s Chemistry Department as a post-doctoral fellow, to research the development of radioisotope tracers for diagnostic medical imaging.

From 1981 to 1985, Dr. Schlyer worked first as a corporate research chemist and then as chairman of a hospital research department. He returned to Brookhaven Lab in 1985, to continue his work on radioisotope production and to develop new detector and scanning technology for medical imaging.

In addition, Dr. Schlyer is an adjunct professor of biomedical engineering at Stony Brook University and mentors graduate students working towards their Masters and PhD degrees. Working as a consultant for the International Atomic Energy Agency, he trains chemists and physicians who are setting up nuclear medicine programs in developing countries for their citizens’ benefit.

His interests include the cyclotron production of radionuclides, nanoparticle biodistribution and toxicology and the development of new instrumentation for positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.