# Development of large-field-of-view hyperpolarized MRI

> **NIH NIH R01** · SLOAN-KETTERING INST CAN RESEARCH · 2024 · $546,632

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Prostate cancers, currently the most common cancer in men, demonstrate a tremendous range of biologic
diversity. Clinical assessments of response to non-surgical therapy are often inadequate because, as studies
have shown, they lead to inaccuracies when they rely upon serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels
reaching a nadir, or upon the histological confirmation of cancer using transrectal ultrasound guided biopsies.
When progressing to metastatic cancer, typically after androgen deprivation therapy, castrate resistant prostate
cancer (CRPC) results in bone lesions in more than 90% of cases. There remains a critical clinical need for
greater sensitivity and specificity in molecular imaging biomarkers of prostate cancer presence and of response
to novel therapeutics.
An extraordinary new technique, hyperpolarized magnetic resonance (HP MR), has the potential to change the
way we interrogate metabolism in vivo. Through the utilization of 13C-labeled endogenous substrates, we are
able to non-invasively image a metabolic intermediate and its subsequent downstream products using
conventional MRI. In the setting of prostate cancer, this provides a potentially invaluable tool for the study of
prostate cancer metabolism and its modulation as a function of tumor aggressiveness and response to
therapeutic intervention. Unfortunately, we are currently limited in our ability to visualize large volumes of
interest, whereas metastatic prostate cancer typically requires visualization of the abdomen and bone regions,
virtually inaccessible to current HP MRI approaches.
The objective of this innovative academic industrial partnership is to address this problem by developing a
large-field-of-view HP MRI approach, including both hardware and software. This proposal would establish a
robust platform to enable the imaging of metastatic disease in prostate cancer patients. In the first aim of this
proposal we will develop a novel 13C body transmit coil and receive system capable of imaging the abdomen.
In tandem, we will also develop acquisition strategies to take advantage of this hardware for rapid HP MRI.
Finally, we will validate this approach in 2 cohorts of metastatic prostate cancer patients. The first will be imaged
with HP [1-13C] pyruvate to assess methods to visualize downstream glycolysis and the second with [2-13C]
pyruvate to image the TCA cycle for a first-in-human study.
It is the overarching goal of this proposal to build a novel, large-field-of-view approach to HP MRI – including,
importantly, both hardware and software – and apply it to the imaging of HP pyruvate metabolism in cancer
patients so as to provide benchmark for future studies using this technique, and additionally to determine its
ability to inform on prostate biology.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10739293
- **Project number:** 5R01CA237466-05
- **Recipient organization:** SLOAN-KETTERING INST CAN RESEARCH
- **Principal Investigator:** Charles H. Cunningham
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $546,632
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-12-01 → 2024-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10739293

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10739293, Development of large-field-of-view hyperpolarized MRI (5R01CA237466-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10739293. Licensed CC0.

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