Final Report Summary - ULTRANMR (Ultrafast Hyperpolarized NMR and MRI in Multiple Dimensions)
Research during the course of this ERC grant centered on developing new methods in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and imaging (NMR, MRS and MRI), and on applying these methods to physical, chemical, and biological investigations. Our main ERC-sponsored activity centered in combining ultrafast NMR, MRS and MRI sequences developed in our and in other laboratories, with commercial and with custom-build nuclear hyperpolarization hardware capable of providing enhancements by several hundred-folds of the observable MR signals. The combination of these developments promises to deliver unprecedented gains in the speed and sensitivity available to biomolecular NMR, metabolomics NMR, in vivo MRS and clinical MRI analyses. Intimately coupled to these applicative efforts, were investigations into new spin physical phenomena and new pulse sequences capable of opening in-roads in all of the above-mentioned researches. The new instruments and new methodological avenues opened up during the course of this project, can play a unique role in the future of magnetic resonance in general, and of hyperpolarized magnetic resonance in particular. Moreover, these new instruments and methodologies promise to affect all the myriad of fields currently relying on magnetic resonance for understanding the Nature around us, from physics and chemistry to biochemistry, biology, and onwards to human brain research and clinical diagnosis. Societal benefits could arise from the present ERC-sponsored project, in any and/or all of these diverse fields.