Vol. 38, No. 18

3-4-2004
By: Darrell Ward

Ohio State awarded $3 million to develop imaging device

Researchers at Ohio State’s Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute have received a $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a device that will produce images showing the presence of naturally occurring chemicals known as free radicals in living animals.

The device will combine the powerful capabilities of proton magnet resonance imaging technology, which produces images of the body’s organs and tissues, with electron paramagnetic resonance imaging. Electron paramagnetic resonance imaging is an emerging technology that produces images showing the presence of free radicals in tissues.

“It is fitting that Ohio State has received this grant to develop a new technology that will undoubtedly further our understanding of many important diseases and their treatments,” said Fred Sanfilippo, senior vice president for health sciences, dean of the College of Medicine and Public Health and CEO of the Medical Center. “This program is an important example of the College of Medicine’s growing contribution to medical imaging research.”

President Karen Holbrook agrees. “Medical imaging is one of the most promising areas of medicine today, and this latest significant success enhances the already strong support for this important technology at Ohio State,” Holbrook said. “This award is the largest the university has received from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, a new NIH institute created to support these rapidly advancing sciences.”

Free radicals are small, highly reactive molecules that exist only for milliseconds. During their brief lifetime, though, they can damage DNA and other cell components and cause disease.

They are thought to play an important role in cancer, heart and lung disease, stroke, diabetic vascular disease, Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases and inflammatory diseases.

In addition, free radicals are important for many normal body functions such as cell signaling, immune responses and wound healing.

“Great progress has been made over the last several years in this field, but the development of this instrumentation is necessary to realize the tremendous potential of this technology in biomedical research,” says principal investigator Jay L. Zweier, director of the Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, holder of the John H. and Mildred C. Lumley Chair in Medicine and chief of cardiovascular and pulmonary research. “And Ohio State will be the first university in the world to have this powerful new technology.”

The new device also will produce images of oxygen levels in tissues, which is particularly important when using radiation therapy to treat cancer. Radiation therapy kills cancer cells by producing high levels of free radicals, especially oxygen free radicals, in cancer cells.

But many tumors are low in oxygen and produce fewer oxygen free radicals, making radiation therapy less potent. The new imaging device will enable researchers to study ways to manipulate tumor oxygen levels and perhaps improve the effectiveness of radiation therapy.

The researchers expect to spend the first three years of the four-year grant building the device and the last year conducting application studies. A working prototype of the instrument already exists.

onCampus Home