Frans J. Th. Wackers MD, PhD
Frans J. Th. Wackers, MD is Professor Emeritus of Diagnostic Radiology and Medicine,He served as Director of the Cardiovascular Nuclear Imaging Laboratory at YaleUniversity School of Medicine from 1984 to 2005.Born in Echt, The Netherlands, Dr Wackers received both his M.D. and Ph.D. degreesfrom the University of Amsterdam School of Medicine in 1970. He completed training inInternal Medicine and Cardiology in the former Wilhelmina Gasthuis, Amsterdam,Netherlands in 1977. Dr Wackers moved to the USA in 1977 where he was on the faculty of the Section ofCardiovascular Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine (1977-1981), theUniversity of Vermont College of Medicine (1981-1984) and from 1984 -2012 at YaleUniversity School of Medicine.
Dr. Wackers is an Emeritus Fellow of the American College of Cardiology; an EmeritusFellow of the American Heart Association, Council on Clinical Cardiology; a member ofthe Society of Nuclear Medicine; an Emeritus Fellow of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology. He is also a Diploma European Cardiologist of European Society ofCardiology.He was on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, theAmerican Journal of Cardiology, and Journal of Nuclear Cardiology.He was President of the Cardiovascular Council of The Society of Nuclear Medicine(1992-1993), President of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (1994-1995),President of the Certification Council of Nuclear Cardiology (1996 -1997), President ofthe Intersocietal Commission for Accreditation of Nuclear Laboratories (1997-2005).He is the recipient of the Rescar Award of the University of Maastricht, The Netherlands(1988), the Herrman Blumgart Award of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, New EnglandChapter (1995), the Homi Baba Award of the Indian Nuclear Cardiological Society(1997), the Eugene Drake Award of the American Heart Association, New EnglandAffiliate (1999), the Distinguished Service Award of the Society of Nuclear Cardiology(1999), the third Mario Verani Memorial Lecturer of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology(2004), the Wenckebach Lecturer of the Dutch Society of Cardiology (2004) and the Mario Verani Lecturer of Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas (2006).
Dr. Wackers is considered a pioneer in Nuclear Cardiology. He was the first to injectThallium-201 in a patient with heart infarct in Amsterdam (1974). He is the founder ofthe American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (1993), the Certification Board of Nuclear Cardiology (1996) and the Intersocietal Commission for Accreditation of Nuclear laboratories (1997). He was Co-Chair of the 6th and 7th International Conference of Nuclear Cardiology (2003, 2005).Dr. Wackers published more than 339 articles on nuclear cardiology and clinicalcardiology Dr Wackers was the Principal Investigator and Chairman of the multicenter (n=14) Detection of Ischemia in Asymptomatic Diabetics (DIAD) study. The study started inSeptember 2000, recruitment was completed in August 2002 , follow-up was completedin September 2007. The main endpoint manuscript was published in 2009 in JAMA.
Dr Wackers was also the director of the Yale University Radionuclide Core laboratory.The laboratory has been involved in numerous multicenter clinical studies utilizingcardiac nuclear imaging since its inception in 1984.