Prof. Malcolm Levitt, from the University of Southampton (UK), and coworkers have been awarded a grant from the European Research Council of EUR 2.8 million to support research into enhanced nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). NMR is the physical principle underlying MRI scanning, which is used routinely to detect abnormalities such as tumors. The long-term goal is that this project will lead to a variety of clinical applications, including the early detection of cancer.

NMR signals are intrinsically very weak. However, technique have been developed recently that lead to substances exhibiting a phenomenon called hyperpolarization, which give rise to NMR signals that can be more than 100,000 times stronger than normal. The problem is that this incredible enhancement only lasts a short amount of time--up to one minute in favorable instances.

This research has earlier shown the existence of quantum states that have very long lifetimes--up to half an hour in the case of the common substance nitrous oxide. The new research grant has been awarded for a project that involves a combination of the hyperpolarization effect with the long-lived quantum states developed in Southampton. The combination could give the best of both worlds--vastly enhanced NMR signals, which last long enough to perform an MRI scan.

Prof. Levitt remarked, “This could have benefits for MRI scanning. If you have strong signals, you can detect smaller amounts of substance that are less concentrated. For example, some substances naturally occur in a cell as part of the metabolism process, but occur in greater amounts in cancerous cells. Through this method, we should be able to detect when these substances are present and cells are potentially cancerous, earlier than ever before. Additionally, this method could allow us to detect oxygen levels in cells. When oxygen levels are depleted, this can mean that cells are metabolizing more quickly, which can suggest that the cells are cancerous.”

In addition to funding the research, the grant will allow for two new pieces of equipment to be installed at the University of Southampton. One will be a polarizer, which will be designed and built in Southampton, and which will generate compounds exhibiting the hyperpolarization phenomenon. The second piece of equipment will be a NMR spectrometer equipped to perform small-scale MRI research, to evaluate out the new concepts in preparation for performing experiments on a clinical MRI scanner.

The investigators are optimistic that this research, which will run over the next four years, will lead to the development of new approaches for clinicians to detect metabolic or anatomic abnormalities in the body.

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