Anna M. Wu

Anna M. Wu is a Research Professor at the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the Professor and Chair of the Department of Immunology and Theranostics, Co-Director of the Center for Theranostic Studies at the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope. Her work bridges cancer immunotherapy, molecular imaging, and radiopharmaceutical development.

• Education: A.B. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University; Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University; Postdoctoral training at Yale and University of California, San Francisco.

Her research focuses on engineering antibodies and proteins for cancer targeting, imaging, and therapy using modalities like SPECT, PET, optical imaging, and multimodality approaches. She pioneered antibody fragments (diabodies, minibodies) for precise control over pharmacokinetics and tissue penetration, with applications in radioimmunotherapy and immunoPET imaging of immune cell subsets like CD8 T cells.

A leader in clinical translation, she led a Phase I immunoPET study and initiated Phase II imaging of CD8 T cells in checkpoint inhibitor therapy patients. She is also co-founder and Chief Scientific Advisor of ImaginAb, Inc., commercializing engineered antibodies for clinical imaging.