February 6, 2017 The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded Kenneth S. Hettie, a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Chin's laboratory, a NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship (F32) for his project titled "An ¹⁸F PET/NIRF Smart Probe for Identifying, Grading, and Visualizing Astrocytic Gliomas." The 3-year award commences in July 2017, wherein he will develop an activatable probe based on a molecular logic gate design strategy to selectively target and distinguish all grades of intracranial glioma growth for multimodal imaging using ¹⁸F positron emission tomography (PET) and near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF). The smart probe would afford i) noninvasive identification and grading of intracranial astrocytic gliomas as well as diagnostic monitoring for tumor growth, grade transformation, and recurrence (all prior to and/or after resection), and ii) direct visualization of both diffuse and deeply-embedded tumor tissue upon its application to NIRF-guided surgery. Congratulations, Dr. Hettie!