Kurt R. Zinn, DVM, MS, PhD, completed his undergraduate studies in Chemistry (BA) at the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC), followed by veterinary medicine (D.V.M.) and graduate education at UMC, where he earned MS (Chemistry) and PhD (Biochemistry) degrees. He joined the UAB Radiology faculty in 1995 after nine years as a scientist at the UMC Research Reactor, where he developed methods for producing high specific activity radionuclides including Cu-64.

Zinn was professor of Radiology at UAB from 2003–2017, and also served as director of UAB’s Laboratory of Multimodality Imaging (2007–2017) and the Small Animal Imaging Shared Facility (2003–2017). He served as a member of the UAB Radioisotope and Radiation Safety Committee from 1997–2017, and chair of the committee from 2008–2017. Zinn served as director of Radiology’s Division of Advanced Medical Imaging Research from 2009–2017 and vice-chair of Translational Research from 2015–2017. Zinn was a member of the UAB Graduate Faculty and provided research training for MS and PhD students.

Zinn received the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Academy of Radiology Research in 2015. His research includes the development of molecular imaging approaches for cancer diagnosis, treatment monitoring, and therapy. Zinn has contributed significantly to more than ten phase I clinical trials.