When the Canadian government launched a $1.7 billion program to recruit international scholars, McMaster’s wish list included a married couple at an American university.

Suzanne Lapi and Jonathan McConathy — a chemist and a clinician — had played key roles in making the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) a research powerhouse in radiopharmaceutical science and nuclear medicine. It’s a multidisciplinary field where researchers are unlocking new and better ways of diagnosing and treating cancer and other diseases.

The global radiopharmaceuticals market — currently valued at more than $8 billion USD – is poised for substantial growth driven by technological advancements and increasing demand for personalized medicine.

So bringing two established leaders at the forefront of radiopharmaceutical science would be a boon for McMaster, Hamilton and Canada.

There was just one problem — other universities were courting the couple and it was a long line of suitors. Every university leader knew Lapi and McConathy would help make a good radiopharma program great and take a great program to a whole other level.

McMaster’s program is very much the latter. Canada’s Nuclear University is already a world leader in medical isotope production. The McMaster Nuclear Reactor — the country’s most powerful research reactor — produces 60 per cent of the world’s supply of iodine-125. That supply provides treatments for more than 70,000 cancer patients every year. Much of this made possible thanks to major investments by the Ontario government.

The University also serves as the hub and talent pipeline for a city that has become the radiopharmaceutical capital of Canada. In 2024, AstraZeneca acquired Hamilton-based Fusion Pharmaceuticals — a cancer therapy and diagnostics company founded nine years earlier by McMaster professor John Valliant — for $2.4 billion.

Valliant is also the founder of the Centre for Probe Development and Commercialization, a not-for-profit advancing nuclear medicine in Canada and beyond operating from the McMaster Innovation Park.

In 2025, Atomvie Global Radiopharma — another Hamilton company with McMaster roots — announced a $138 million investment in a new facility next to the city’s international airport that will increase its capacity to manufacture radiopharmaceuticals for targeted cancer therapies by at least 10-fold.

Lapi and McConathy spent the winter meeting with suitors from across Canada, including McMaster President Susan Tighe and Gianni Parise, the University’s Vice-president of Research.

“Suzanne and Jonathan are internationally recognized leaders who know how to connect discovery, clinical translation and commercialization,” said Parise.

“We knew their leadership would help accelerate our ambitions and strengthen our position at the forefront of radiopharmaceutical science — that’s exactly why we wanted them at McMaster.”

For Lapi and McConathy, what stood out was not only the foundation that had been set at McMaster or the future vision for radiopharmaceutical science at the university — it was the passion behind the senior leaders’ personal pitch.

“Susan and Gianni’s enthusiasm matched how Jon and I talk about radiopharma around the dinner table,” said Lapi. “To be a world leader in this field, a university must be all-in. That takes a major investment, a sustained commitment and a willingness to collaborate with industry, health care and government partners. Susan and Gianni left no doubt that McMaster was serious.”

McMaster’s commitment includes launching a McMaster Institute for Radiopharmaceutical Imaging and Therapy, building a bio-innovation hub on campus, upgrading existing facilities, installing new equipment and hiring more faculty and staff with expertise in radiopharmaceutical science.

All of these investments aim to make McMaster a leader in preclinical evaluations and human clinical trials.

In August 2026, McMaster announced that Lapi and McConathy, together with three other researchers from the United States, were joining the university as Eddie Goldenberg Research Chairs of Canada. Canada-wide, universities recruited 64 top tier researchers from the United States and around the world.

“McMaster’s momentum in the field of radiopharmaceutical science has been building for decades, starting with commissioning our reactor in 1959, and growing steadily ever since,” said Tighe.

“We already have great people across the board, a collaborative culture, and a deep commitment to improving the quality of life through our work. Suzanne and Jonathan will help us to complete the puzzle. I know they’ll be able to do their best work here at McMaster.”

As the Eddie Goldenberg Research Chair in Isotope Production and Radiopharmaceutical Innovation in the Faculty of Science, Lapi will serve as the inaugural director of the McMaster Institute for Radiopharmaceutical Imaging and Therapy.

McConathy, the Eddie Goldenberg Research Chair for Molecular Imaging and Nuclear Theranostics in the Faculty of Health Sciences, will lead translational research through the university’s Department of Medical Imaging.

Task 1 for Lapi and McConathy is growing McMaster’s translational radiopharmaceutical program so more of the discoveries happening at the bench become breakthroughs at the bedside.

The couple was instrumental in creating a culture of discovery at UAB that closed the gap between chemists and clinicians. They aim to help do the same at McMaster.

“Closer collaborations ultimately lead to better imaging, better therapies and better outcomes for patients,” said Lapi.

The couple are also all-in on McMaster’s new strategic plan which calls on faculty and staff to be bolder together. They aim to have McMaster conduct its first radiopharmaceutical clinical trial before the end of 2027.

“Definitely bold, but eminently doable, given the talent and enthusiasm that’s here at Mac,” says Lapi.

And their enthusiastic conversations around the dinner table will continue in their new home.