Jacob Hooker

Jacob M. Hooker is an American chemist and expert in molecular imaging, particularly in the development and application of simultaneous MRI and PET. He is a Professor of Radiology specializing in Autism Research, Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport MGH Research Scholar and scientific director at the Lurie Center for Autism at Massachusetts General Hospital.^[1]

He grew up outside of Asheville, North Carolina and attended Enka High School. He graduated from North Carolina State University in 2002 with bachelor of science degrees in Textile Chemistry and Chemistry.^[2] He earned his doctorate of philosophy in Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley.^[3] After hearing a neuroimaging presentation in 2006 by National Medal of Science recipient Joanna Fowler, Hooker enrolled in postdoctoral training under her mentorship at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.^[4] Hooker conducted his postdoctoral training with Fowler as a Goldhaber Distinguished Fellow, developing new neuroscience-oriented imaging methods and protocols.

Hooker relocated to Charlestown, MA in 2009 at the initiation of his independent research career at the Martinos Center; that same year, he was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers by President Barack Obama, in recognition of his scientific contributions.^[5] He co-designed and scratch-built a cyclotron and radiopharmacy facility housing a Siemens Eclipse HP Cyclotron, completed early 2011.^[6] At Massachusetts General Hospital, Hooker co-founded and co-directs an imaging facility that combines functional MRI and positron emission tomography (PET) for the neurochemical study of the Human Brain.^[7] He holds associate appointments at the Broad Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).^[8] From 2017 to 2021, Hooker co-founded Eikonizo Therapeutics and later Sensorium Therapeutics.^[9] He is also Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor of ACS Chemical Neuroscience.^[10] Since 2021, Hooker has been a Scientific Advisor for Delix Therapeutics, Psy Therapeutics, Inc., and Fuzionaire Diagnostics, with his advisory roles at the latter two companies beginning in 2018 and 2020, respectively.^[11] He is also chief science advisor to Rocket Science Health.^[12]

His research focus centers on the themes of neuroepigenetics, radiochemistry methods development and neuroimaging methods development.^[13] At Harvard, Jacob Hooker's research lab, in collaboration with the Steve Haggarty lab, is exploring novel plant-based and entheogenic psychedelics, Their work includes innovative projects such as investigating the potential of psychedelics in therapeutic applications.^[14] Recently, they have been in discussions with a company that produces thin film wafers of psychedelics, exploring the possibility of conducting a microdosing study to treat chronic anxiety.^[15] Hooker has published over 100 papers^[16] in the domains of:

Work from Hooker's group published in August 2016 – Wey & Gilbert et al 2016 Science Translational Medicine revealed the first visual maps of neuroepigenetic function in the living human brain using the Class-I histone deacetylase (HDAC) PET imaging probe [¹¹C]Martinostat.^{[17][improper synthesis?][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]}

• In a 2011 Science paper, in collaboration with Tobias Ritter's lab at Harvard, Hooker demonstrated for the first time that a palladium-IV complex could fundamentally 'switch' the way fluoride behaves in chemical reactions, most aptly described as a switch from a nucleophile to an electrophile.^[30] In a separate and subsequent advance, this unconventional mindset led to the first demonstration of a concerted nucleophilic aromatic substitution reaction, published in Nature in 2016.^[31]
• Hooker and Stephen Buchwald (MIT) developed a strategy for labeling molecules with carbon-11 using cyanide nearly instantaneously using a biaryl phosphine Pd(0) complexes.^[32]
• Hooker and John T. Groves (Princeton) demonstrated the first example of radiofluorination with fluoride-18 using C-H ^[33] and decarboxylation with manganese catalysts.^[34]

As the scientific director of the Lurie Center for Autism at Massachusetts General Hospital, Hooker's work focuses on identifying specific subtypes of autism, which could pave the way for more precise diagnoses and treatments.^[35] His team investigated how factors in the blood could help distinguish between these subtypes, an approach that may uncover crucial molecular differences that contribute to autism's wide spectrum of symptoms.^[36]

Hooker and his team were able to develop a method for brain glucose monitoring that produced something more like a movie, reporting changes in glucose use in response to multiple stimuli during a single PET scan.^[37] The lab is now expanding the concept of dynamic, functional PET imaging to measure real-time neurotransmitter release in the living human brain.^[38]

In 2010, He received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.^[39] In 2016, Hooker was named as a Phyllis and Jerome Lyle Rappaport MGH Research Scholar] which acknowledges 'forward thinking researchers with the funding they need to take their work into uncharted territories'. His research proposal, entitled Visualizing Chemical Dysfunction in the Human Brain was awarded $500,000 over five years.^[40] In 2015, He was featured in the inaugural Talented 12 list by Chemical & Engineering News, for his work work in the area of molecular imaging, particularly focusing on positron emission tomography (PET).^[41]

In 2015, the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation acknowledged Jacob with an Independent Investigator Award for research piloting neuroimaging in patients with Schizophrenia. He was named by The Scientist magazine as a Scientist to Watch, and in an article dubbing him 'The Mind Mapper' was among inaugural winners of the Talented 12 Award from the American Chemical Society's C & E News.^[42]

Hooker was named by the National Academy of Sciences as a prestigious Kavli Fellow for a five-year tenure (2012-2017) and as a Keck Futures Initiative Fellow (2013-2015).^{[citation needed]}

In 2009 he became a Department of Energy recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) for pioneering research on adapting modern synthetic chemistry to the development of new tools for tracking and quantifying biochemical transformations and the movement of complex molecules in living systems, as well as outreach and mentorship to visiting students and scholars.^[43]