Lloyd Wayne Tansey

He attended Lamar University in Beaumont where he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1961 and then went to Texas A&M University where he worked as a teaching assistant and earned a master’s of science in organic chemistry in 1965.

He married Barbara West on Jan. 28, 1962 in Beaumont.

He moved his family to Houston in 1965 and began working as a research assistant in the Neurochemistry & Neuropharmacology Section of the Texas Research Institute of Mental Sciences (TRIMS). In 1974 he was promoted to research specialist. He continued working at TRIMS doing research on mental illnesses until the facility closed in 1985.

In 1986, he became a senior research assistant in the Neuro-Oncology Department at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. From 1988-89 he was a faculty member at the University of Houston where he taught chemistry.

In 1989 he became a senior research assistant in M.D. Anderson’s Department of Nuclear Medicine, Division of Diagnostic Imaging. He was a pioneer in PET scan imaging technology.

He retired from M.D. Anderson in 2002.

He was an emeritus member of the American Chemical Society having joined in 1960. He was a member of the Society of Nuclear Medicine since 1995.

He was a loving father and grandfather. He enjoyed gardening, photography and building computers. He was a member of the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Houston Zoological Society.

He was a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church since 1965.

Survivors include his wife, Barbara Tansey of Houston; a son and daughter-in-law, Mark and Evelyn Tansey of Houston; a daughter and son-in-law, Susan and Mike Thomas of San Antonio; a son and daughter-in-law, Alan and Jennifer Tansey of Pearland; four grandchildren, John and Sarah Tansey of Pearland and Nathan and Isabel Thomas of San Antonio; a sister and brother-in-law, Llewellyn and Sam Taylor of Lubbock; his mother-in-law, Elizabeth West of Houston; a nephew, Gary Taylor and wife Lisa of Dallas; a niece, Gayle Sims and husband Eric of Lubbock; and many more family and friends.

Services will be at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2010 at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church with Dr. Jim Bankston and the Rev. Terry Thompson officiating.

Burial will be in Oak Hill Cemetery in Smithville, Texas.

The family suggests memorials to St. Paul’s United Methodist Church and Houston Hospice.