10 Jan 2025
Prof. Dr. Rudolf Werner has been Director of the Clinic and Polyclinic for Nuclear Medicine since 1 January 2025. The 37-year-old was previously Head of Nuclear Medicine at the Center of Radiology at Frankfurt University Hospital since 2023.
Prof. Dr. Rudolf Werner has been the new Director of the Clinic and Polyclinic for Nuclear Medicine since January 1, 2025 | © LMU Klinikum
After growing up and attending grammar school in Hersbruck (Middle Franconia), Rudolf Alexander Werner studied human medicine at the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, where he completed his doctorate in cardiology. He also spent two years at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore (USA) in the Division of Nuclear Medicine. After residencies at the University Hospital of Würzburg and the Hannover Medical School, he habilitated in the field of experimental nuclear medicine in 2020. In the following year, he extended his specialization to the entire field at the Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg. At the University Hospital of Würzburg, he also worked as deputy clinic director and sub-project leader in a DFG-funded collaborative research center on inflammatory imaging after myocardial infarction.
One focus of Professor Werner's clinical and scientific work includes the field of theranostics, which describes an innovative procedure in oncological care. This involves the use of radiopharmaceuticals, i.e. weakly radioactively labeled "detection probes", to visualize surface proteins on the tumour cell using molecular imaging - positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT). If the detection of these target structures is successful, these probes can be labeled with a therapeutic radionuclide in order to irradiate the cancer in a highly targeted manner. "With this personalized approach based on upstream PET/CT diagnostics, patients who will particularly benefit from this therapy can be identified in advance. Thanks to the specific uptake of the therapeutically effective radioactive substance in the tumor foci, the surrounding normal tissue can be spared as far as possible," explains Prof. Werner.
Prof. Werner also focuses on the use of combined PET/CT in oncology, nephrology and cardiology. The tracers used can depict a wide variety of metabolic processes in the body and can, for example, image inflammatory processes or reduced blood flow in the heart.