Hyperpolarized 13C MRI

A team, including researchers from the UC San Francisco Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, investigated a new imaging tool for monitoring response to therapies in patients with glioblastoma (GBM).

2023 Workshop HMTRC celebrated its 11^th year as a center, and its annual Workshop continues to have a national and global impact on advancing hyperpolarized carbon-13  MR molecular imaging technology.

With funding from the National Institutes for Health, the HMTRC develops and disseminates hyperpolarized (HP) 13C MR techniques and instrumentation, specialized data acquisition methodology, and analysis software for biomedical research. Hyperpolarized 13C MRI is an emerging molecular imaging technique that provides unprecedented tissue metabolic information. Established in 2011, the HMTRC is the quintessential example of our department's vision of Leading Imaging Innovation to Improve Health, and its strategic pillar of Team Science and Moonshot.

Investigators from the Hyperpolarized MRI Technology Resource Center (HMTRC) at UCSF set out to study whether hyperpolarized (HP) pyruvate MRI can a) detect cancer based on its metabolic reprogramming and b) whether it can assess tumor aggressiveness. 

A recap of the 2022 Hyperpolarized Carbon-13 MRI Technology Development Workshop hosted by the NIH-funded UCSF Hyperpolarized MRI Technology Resource Center (HMTRC) which took place at Genentech Hall, UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay on March 17 and 18, 2022.

March is National Kidney Month, a time to raise awareness and focus on research and building paths for better kidney care. Here at UCSF Radiology, we’d also like to highlight innovative research that will clinically translate to better kidney care. 

Two UCSF Radiology faculty recently received funding from National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Cancer Institute (NCI) for an exciting research project to study hyperpolarized (HP) carbon-13 (13C) metabolic MRI in prostate cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy (RT).

Jane Wang, MD and Peder Larson, PhD are collaborating on a project applying hyperpolarized (HP) carbon 13 (¹³C) metabolic MRI in patients with renal tumors.

Recently, a team of scientists from UCSF Radiology, the UC Berkeley-UCSF Graduate Program in Bioengineering and the UCSF Department of Medicine Division of Cardiology came together to work to improve tradeoffs between a fixed spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for hyperpolarized 13 C MRI.

Myriam Chaumeil PhD's lab is working to develop better and faster ways to image the brain and the way it works using hyperpolarized carbon-13 MR imaging technology.