​The Award was presented to Dr. Bénard at the 2017 WRSNM Annual Meeting, November 4, at the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver.  

The Award is given annually at the WRSNM Meeting to an individual who has made significant contributions to the Clinical Science of Nuclear Medicine or Molecular Imaging.

Dr. Bénard is the Vice President, Research and a Distinguished Scientist here at the BC Cancer Agency. He is also Associate Dean, Research and a Professor in the Department of Radiology at the University of British Columbia (UBC). In addition he holds the BC Leadership Chair in Functional Cancer Imaging. As a clinician scientist, his research interests are in positron emission tomography (PET), nuclear medicine, cancer imaging and targeted radionuclide therapy.

His research team has developed several new radiopharmaceuticals targeting tumour receptors, notably peptides and small molecule ligands. He initiated the program that developed cyclotron production of Technetium (99mTc) at BC Cancer Agency, Vancouver Centre, and now in clinical trials at multiple sites across Canada.

He has established extensive multidisciplinary collaborations and he and his colleagues were awarded the 2015 Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Dr. Bénard received his degree in College Studies in 1987 from the Séminaire de Sherbrooke in Sherbrooke, Québec and went on to receive his Doctorate in Medicine in 1991 from the Université de Sherbrooke.  He undertook Specialized Studies in Nuclear Medicine at the Université de Sherbrooke from 1991 to 1995 and then received a PET Research Fellowship from 1995 to 1998 from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.  Dr. Bénard was at the University of Sherbrooke from 1998 to 2008 at which point he relocated to Vancouver to join the UBC and the BC Cancer Agency.