Joseph R. Osborne, MD, PhD

I am a physician-scientist with board-certification in diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine.  I joined Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Molecular Imaging and Therapy Service faculty in 2012 after several years on the Radiology Service faculty at Weill Cornell Medical Center to continue my focus on the use of positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) and radionuclide-based therapy in clinical care. I collaborate closely with surgeons, medical oncologists, and pathologists in treating our patients with genitourinary cancer and brain tumors.

I have a strong interest in the genetic and socioeconomic causes for the uneven burden of cancer-related mortality. My preliminary work has focused on genomic and imaging biomarkers underlying increased mortality from prostate cancer in African Americans. As the principal investigator of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) R21 grant from the National Cancer Institute's Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities, I am investigating new imaging probes to improve our means of noninvasively diagnosing prostate cancer. I am also co-leading an investigation from the Brain Tumor Center to image malignant brain tumors. My goal is to combine this work with my efforts as Memorial Sloan-Kettering's In-vivo Cellular and Molecular Imaging Center training director, so that we can responsibly translate the application of investigational compounds and genomic biomarkers to people in the highest at-risk communities.