Peter J. H. Scott

Peter J. H. Scott FRSC CChem (born July 27, 1979) is a British and American chemist and radiochemist who is a professor of radiology, professor of pharmacology and professor of medicinal chemistry, as well as a core member of the Rogel Cancer Center at the University of Michigan in the United States. He is Chief of Nuclear Medicine and director of the University of Michigan Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Center, and runs a research group developing new radiochemistry methodology and novel PET radiotracers.

Life
Peter Scott was born and grew up in North East England and attended Whitley Bay High School. He received his undergraduate degree with first class honors in medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry from Loughborough University in 2001, after conducting research with Raymond Jones. He subsequently obtained his PhD in organic chemistry from Durham University in 2005, where he was a member of Ustinov College, under the mentorship of Patrick G. Steel. Scott then moved to the United States to undertake postdoctoral research in organometallic chemistry at SUNY Buffalo under Huw Davies, and PET radiochemistry at the University of Michigan with Michael Kilbourn.

Research
Scott runs a research group developing new metal-catalyzed methods for incorporating fluorine-18 and carbon-11 into bioactive molecules as well as novel PET radiotracers for imaging neurodegenerative disorders. His methodology work aims to improve the synthesis of PET radiotracers and he has an active collaboration with Prof. Melanie Sanford's group that is funded by NIBIB. Together they have developed methods for the Cu-mediated radiofluorination and radiocyanation of (mesityl)(aryl)iodonium salts, boronic acids and stannanes, as well as new methods for radiofluorination of C-H bonds  and aryl halides. Scott has also introduced methods for green radiochemistry, for which he received the Michigan Green Chemistry Governor's Award in 2014. In 2019, Prof. Scott was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), and received a Distinguished Investigator Award from the Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research. In 2021, he was honored as a Fellow of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, and was also recognized by SNMMI in 2023 with the Sam Gambhir Trailblazer Award, created to honor the legacy and memory of the late Sanjiv Sam Gambhir.