Innovative contrast agents for more… – Information Centre – Research & Innovation

Updated on 17 July 2020

The EU-funded CONQUER task centered on maximizing and growing the versatility of contrast agents. These are substances that can be administered prior to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to a lot more evidently and specifically distinguish distinct tissues and fluids in the overall body: from muscle mass, cartilage and nerves to cancer tumours and the movement of blood by arteries, veins and the brain.

The technological know-how is indispensable for knowledge and diagnosing disease as very well as building new therapies. Having said that, the use of contrast mechanisms in MRI scans has been minimal simply because of time and charge variables, as very well as fears about publicity to some agents these as all those centered on the scarce-earth factor gadolinium.

The CONQUER staff for that reason sought improved and smarter alternatives, including contrast agents that can be turned on or off remotely by changing magnetic fields in buy to make scans of distinct tissues a lot more specific and versatile.

‘We have provided a proof of basic principle for a new contrast system that gives two benefits. We now have the probable to change the contrast on and off, and we use an alternate agent to gadolinium about which there is open discussion around probable toxicity concerns,’ states task coordinator Hermann Scharfetter at Graz College of Engineering in Austria.

The CONQUER team’s analysis centered on a versatile contrast strategy referred to as ‘quadrupole peace enhancement’ which will work on the basis of how alerts produced by the spins of protons within tissues decay, or ‘relax’, in excess of time as they interact with the contrast agent. In its place of gadolinium-centered substances, the CONQUER staff applied novel bismuth-centered agents.

‘We have verified for the to start with time that quadrupole peace enhancement of solvent protons by the spin of bismuth nuclei is achievable in liquids. This opens up novel avenues for further analysis in this location,’ Scharfetter states.

To help the use of new contrast agents, the task associates also made new resources for MRI scanners, including novel parts that have been equipped experimentally to a clinical 3T MRI scanner, and which have resulted in a patent application.

Scharfetter and his staff are continuing analysis in the location with new jobs in the pipeline, driving forward promising areas of examine centered in unique on optimising nanoparticles in novel contrast agents. This ongoing operate could significantly enhance the means of MRI technological know-how to crank out a further knowledge of disease and even a lot more successful and precise diagnoses for patients.