Today is 3 years since we lost my good friend Andy Tager. Andy was an inspirational physician scientist working to eliminate #IPF and #HIV. I’d appreciate your memories of Andy. Tagging @KaminskiMed @IPFdoc @rsknipe and I hope you tag others 1/8

Andy got me interested in developing molecular probes for lung imaging. His enthusiasm and optimism stays with me. His messages were punctuated with multiple exclamation points !!! and I first thought “What’s with the faux optimism?” 2/8

But that was Andy. So excited about science and its potential for transforming lives. Sharing new data was like Christmas morning with a 5 year old – he couldn’t wait to see the data. Like all good scientists he saw positive or negative results as revealing the full story. 3/8

When a particularly big result was coming, his famous expression was “Helmets On!” which meant that we had to don helmets before seeing this amazing data lest our heads explode. 4/8

Andy was a great mentor and I know he would be thrilled to see his mentees at #ATS2020. Sydney Montesi, Lida Hariri, @rsknipe @david_lagares. Andy co-mentored @e_boros on her K99 NIH grant. 5/8

Andy advocated bringing new technologies and scientists from different disciplines in to tackle the awful disease that is IPF. Our #MolecularImaging in #IPF work has progressed to clinical trials and I hope it can play a role in accelerating new therapies into the clinic. 6/8

Mentorship is viewed as an early career activity, but I met Andy in my 40s and with an established lab. Yet I learned so much from Andy in terms of designing experiments, mentoring young scientists, and performing collaborative research. 7/8

Andy’s optimism and enthusiasm will always stay with me and I hope that I can transmit it forward. End