Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - HP4all (Persistent and Transportable Hyperpolarization for Magnetic Resonance)

Teaser

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and are two well-established powerful and versatile tools that are extensively used in many fields of research, in clinics and in industry. Despite considerable efforts involving highly sophisticated...

Summary

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and are two well-established powerful and versatile tools that are extensively used in many fields of research, in clinics and in industry. Despite considerable efforts involving highly sophisticated instrumentation, these techniques suffer from low sensitivity, which keeps many of today’s most interesting problems in modern analytical sciences below the limits of MR detection. Hyperpolarization (HP) in principle provides a solution to this limitation by preparing molecules in a \'hyperpolarized\' state which improves the detection sensitivity by more than 10\'000 folds. However the lifetime of these hyperpolarized states usually are on the order of seconds. The HP4all project aims at generating molecules in a hyperpolarized state that persists for hours, and can therefore be transported to any points of use (hospital, NMR centers, etc.).

Work performed

We have been working at:
- building a dDNP polarizer, optimizing it, training the team to use it, and successfully achieved performances that are state-of-the-art.
- designing and synthetizing new polarizing materials to generate transportable hyperpolarization in frozen liquid solutions. we invented a micro-architectured sample formulation based on porous polymers dubbed HYPOP (hyperpolarizing porous polymer) and we have shown that these porous polymers could be 1) impregnated with a solution to hyperpolarize, 2) be polarized in our DNP polarizer, 3) be dissolved and extracted while retaining a significant part of the hyperpolarization
- working at understanding and modeling the hyperpolarization process (transfer of polarization from the electron to the nuclear spins in the polymer, diffusion of the polarization from the polymer to the molecules of interest).
- exploring applications in the field of drug discovery, metabolomics, and preclinical imaging.

Final results

The HP4all project will develop strategies and methods beyond current state-of-the-art to generate high and persistent hyperpolarization in a broad range of molecules, therefore enabling transport and delivery over long distances for molecular imaging in MRI centers or hospitals and for NMR spectroscopy. The main progress beyond state of the art will be related to
1) the invention and optimization of new generations of polarizing matrices
2) the development of a method to generate hyperpolarization in these matrices and then transport this hyperpolarization remotely
3) demonstrating applications of hyperpolarization transport in various fields (drug discovery, metabolomics and preclinical imaging)

Website & more info

More info: http://hmrlab.eu.