To attend the seminar, please email Thomas Theis at ttheis@ncsu.edu.

Education:

A.B., Princeton University
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
Postdoctoral Scholar, NSF Laboratory for Molecular Sciences at the California Institute of Technology

Research:

NMR and MRI enjoy wide applicability but suffer from poor detection sensitivity.  For this reason, imaging and spectroscopy of low-concentration species—such as gases in lung spaces or metabolites in tissues—can be particularly challenging.  To combat such problems, we are pursuing two “hyperpolarization” methods: (1) spin-exchange optical pumping (SEOP), a technique whereby high-power lasers are used to prepare hyperpolarized noble gases (primarily for enhanced biological imaging and spectroscopic applications); and (2) Signal Amplification by Reversible Exchange (“SABRE”), a chemical process where organometallic catalysts are used to transfer the high nuclear spin order of para-hydrogen to molecular agents for applications—including for ultimate use as metabolic MRI contrast agents to probe responses to treatment of various diseases.