# Hyperpolarized Carbon-13 Metabolic MRI of the Human Heart

> **NIH NIH R33** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2023 · $482,538

## Abstract

Project Summary
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US, resulting in over 600,000 deaths per
year. The healthy heart is extremely metabolically active in order to supply its energetic needs,
and alterations in cardiac metabolism have significant consequences for heart function.
Metabolism is implicated in many heart diseases, including cardiomyopathies (hereditary
hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, diabetic cardiomyopathy), diabetes, ischemia, HFpEF, and also
as an early measure of systolic and diastolic heart failure. Measuring and quantifying heart
metabolism would have significant implications on the diagnosis, understanding and
management of these heart diseases, but there are no methods currently available to perform
direct measurements of metabolism.
This project aims to develop hyperpolarized 13C MRI as a human metabolic imaging for
assessments of heart disease. This technology, utilizing 13C-pyruvate, has recently been shown
to be safe and feasible in human subjects, with promising initial imaging in the heart. However,
it still requires further development and in vivo validation to establish repeatable and reliable
performance. This proposal includes
Aim 1: Develop robust cardiac hyperpolarized 13C MRI methods. We propose imaging
technology developments including real-time calibrations, fast imaging of multiple metabolites
with whole heart coverage, image reconstructions with off-resonance correction, and
cardiovascular signal models for quantifying metabolism.
Aim 2: Perform in vivo validations in human subjects. We propose a series of studies that will
establish robust imaging protocols and characterize the reproducibility and repeatability of this
technique. These studies include evaluation of subject preparation methods, normalization of
metabolic imaging data with correlative blood measurements, test-retest characterizations in
healthy volunteers and patients, and same-session repeatability for multiple injection studies.
The proposal also includes targeted performance measures to achieve with the proposed
developments. Upon completion of this project, hyperpolarized 13C MRI has transformative
potential for assessing heart diseases, adding new capabilities for quantifying metabolism in
vivo.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10569034
- **Project number:** 5R33HL161816-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Maria Roselle Abraham
- **Activity code:** R33 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $482,538
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-02-15 → 2025-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10569034

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10569034, Hyperpolarized Carbon-13 Metabolic MRI of the Human Heart (5R33HL161816-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10569034. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*