Lalitha K. Shankar, M.D., Ph.D.

Acting Associate Director

Branch Chief

Clinical Trials Branch

Lalitha K. Shankar, MD, PhD, joined NCI in 2003, as an Advisor to the Associate Director of the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis. She is the founding and current Chief of the Clinical Trials Branch at the Cancer Imaging Program. Her research interests have been both in the role of functional and molecular imaging in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, as well as evaluating the performance characteristics of imaging modalities for optimal use in the management of the cancer patient. Her work involves establishment of and monitoring of clinical trials to evaluate imaging tracers and techniques, which aim to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. She provides imaging expertise for trials of cancer diagnostics and therapeutics sponsored by NCI in the clinical trial networks such as NCTN, ETCTN and NCORP. She is the NCI lead for the Clinical Imaging Steering Committee and The Cancer Imaging Archive. She serves on the RECIST and RANO committees. She has served on FDA's Medical Imaging Drug Advisory Committee. She serves on the advisory committees of several trans-European biomarker initiatives. She is the recipient of several NIH and NCI Director Awards and is a Fellow of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.

Dr. Lalitha K. Shankar received her medical degree in Bangalore University, India and received her MS and PhD in Radiation Sciences at Hahnemann University, Philadelphia. She then trained in clinical Nuclear Medicine and completed fellowships in Positron Emission Tomography and Theranostics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Prior to joining the National Cancer Institute, she was a faculty member in the Department of Radiology at Georgetown University and at the Lombardi Cancer Center and also worked in the Division of Nuclear Medicine at Washington Hospital Center.