Developing SABRE magnetic resonance imaging techniques for heart disease

Translational Hyperpolarised Magnetic Resonance (Joint funding with MRC)

The BHF, in collaboration with the Medical Research Council (as part of its Clinical Research Capabilities and Technologies Initiative) has awarded a grant to a team at the Universities of Leeds and York, led by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) expert Professor Sven Plein. The grant will enable the team to establish the ‘National Centre for Translational Hyperpolarised Magnetic Resonance’. MR is a powerful and safe research and clinical imaging technique, with more than 2.3 million scans performed each year in the NHS alone. But it has limitations in terms of sensitivity. The more sensitive scanners require much more computer power to process them, which adds considerable cost. MR can be used with a hyperpolarised agent – a molecule that enables doctors to see the part of the body being scanned by making the image much clearer. There are various ways to ‘hyperpolarise’ molecules. The team at Leeds and York have developed a specific type of ‘spin hyperpolarisation’ technique, called SABRE. The simplicity of this technique and the sheer variety of molecules that can be used with it has generated enormous interest in the hyperpolarisation community. SABRE has the potential to revolutionise MR by significantly improving its sensitivity. The team are already working towards testing SABRE/MRI for the first time in healthy volunteers at the end of 2015. This BHF/MRC funding will help them make their new centre operational, and focus on bringing this technique from the bench to the clinic within the next five years. They will carry out a variety of studies of cancer, heart and circulatory disease and musculoskeletal disease, to find new, more targeted ways to treat these conditions. This technique could be much safer than other imaging techniques that rely on radiation, and could reduce costs, improve diagnostic accuracy, and speed up treatment. Because it can be used on the standard clinical scanners we already have in the UK, it could revolutionise the way we use MR in the near future.