New molecular probes and biological systems for hyperpolarized MRI

Prof. Rachel Katz-Brull is Associate Professor of Imaging at the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine and the Director of the Centre for Hyperpolarized MRI Molecular Imaging at Hadassah’s Ein-Kerem campus in Jerusalem, Israel.

Prof. Katz-Brull has 25 years of experience in the field of biomedical nuclear magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy (NMR/MRI/MRS) and has been focusing on hyperpolarized MRI in the last 10 years. Her current research focuses on the development of dDNP hyperpolarized molecular imaging probes for diagnostic medical imaging. Her group has developed analogues of choline, glucose, and phosphate molecular imaging probes for 13C and 31P hyperpolarized MRI, with 31P dDNP magnetic resonance in solution pioneered by her group. The use of molecular imaging probes with directly bound deuterons to hyperpolarized sites as dDNP imaging agents per se was pioneered by her group as well and led to the first glucose and choline imaging without ionizing radiation.