Development of Hyperpolarized Metabolic Contrast Agents Using PASADENA

NMR studies are often used for in vivo studies in biomedicine due to their non-toxicity and non-radioactivity compared with MRI, PET and CT studies, however, NMR has a lower sensitivity than other methods due to poor alignments of nuclear spins (polarization). The hyperpolarization technique discussed in this application note aims to increase the nuclear spin alignment from several parts per million (ppm) to the order of unity. This dramatic signal enhancement brings the sensitivity of ¹³C and ¹⁵N to the realm of research and potentially clinical in vivo tools.