The Center, jointly established by the Med-X Institute at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Ruijin Hospital, is a public research platform for developing new drugs and exploring mechanisms of diseases. When the center was founded, special interdisciplinary research funding was raised. Researchers from different colleges, medical school and affiliated hospitals at Shanghai Jiao Tong University applied for the funding to start a total of 12 key projects and 23 general projects, which strongly promoted the molecular imaging research. Since 2012, the Center has provided service to more than 182 scientific research projects with more than 5,000 service hours. These projects include "973" Project, and others funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shanghai Science and Technology Commission Fund, and etc. The Center has co-authored 27 SCI papers and Chinese core papers published in journals such as Biomaterials, Cancer Letters and Nanoscale.

Allying with the Med-X Institute at Shanghai Jiao Tong University with its strength in biomedical engineering, the Center is aiming to build a leading research and development base for preclinical positron tracers in China. At present the work being carried out and improved includes: 1) Development of PET probes targeting at various malignant tumors; 2) Evaluation of the therapeutic effect of radiotherapy and chemotherapy; 3) Development of PET probes for early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease; 4) Development and application of PET probes in cardiology; 5) Development of algorithms in neural image data analysis.

The Center joined the Shanghai Public Infrastructure for Research and Development to provide PET/CT imaging technology for basic studies on mechanism of diseases, such as tumor, cardiovascular disease, neuroendocrine and others; apply PET/CT imaging technology to evaluate the effect of drugs and new treatment methods; develop innovative methodology on image processing and image aided diagnosis especially using PET/CT images. The Center plays an important role in molecular research in Shanghai and even in eastern China, and gains recognitions in the collaboration with domestic and foreign scientific research institutions, such as Shandong University, Xiangya Hospital, Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical University, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University and Thomas Jefferson University.

The Center is also a teaching platform for molecular imaging and related courses. Many students from the medical school and other departments of Shanghai Jiao Tong University have visited it and studied here. Besides the function as an experimental practice base for nuclear medicine course and molecular imaging course, the Center acts as a popular science base for nuclear medicine. It delivers popular science education for the public, and actively promotes the public knowledge of nuclear medicine.