# CLINICAL TRANSLATION OF HYPERPOLARIZED 13C-UREA FOR CANCER MR MOLECULAR IMAGING

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2020 · $671,381

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
This Academic-Industry partnership aims to develop and translate new instrumentation and techniques for HP
13C-urea MR perfusion imaging alone and in combination with HP 13C-pyruvate to enable future clinical studies
of patients with cancer, facilitating a more personalized approach to therapeutic selection and monitoring. The
end product of this project will be new dDNP Spinlab polarizer hardware and methods capable of producing
sterile, hyperpolarized compounds for first-in-man perfusion and combined perfusion and metabolic imaging
through initial prostate cancer patient investigations. To accomplish this important project, we have assembled
an exceptional academic and industrial team with expertise in pre-clinical and clinical cancer research, HP
sterile compounding, HP MRI development, and industry product development to: Develop chemistry, agent
hardware and methods of dissolution DNP for the production of sterile HP 13C-urea by itself and then in
combination with sterile HP 13C-pyruvate (Aim 1). Develop and implement novel rapid volumetric 13C MR
imaging methods for serial dynamic imaging of HP 13C-urea, 13C-pyruvate and its metabolites, with high
temporal and spatial resolution (Aim 2). Preclinical Testing and SOP development required for FDA IND
submission (Aim 3). Establish safety and imaging feasibility of first-in-man combined HP 13C-urea and 13C-
pyruvate MR imaging studies in patients with prostate cancer (Aim 4).
The clinical motivation for this academic-industry partnership is that prostate cancer management is severely
limited by currently available clinical and imaging information required to select the most appropriate treatment
for individual patients and to assess response to therapy or development of therapeutic resistance.
Hyperpolarized (HP) 13C MRI is a paradigm shifting new MR molecular imaging technique that provides new
measures to detect, characterize aggressiveness, and monitor therapy in order to improve cancer clinical trials
and individualized patient care. The scientific premise for this project is that, with the success of phase 1
clinical trial of HP 13C-pyruvate imaging in prostate cancer patients, the proliferation of commercially available
clinical polarizers, and the strong pre-clinical data demonstrating the potential value of HP 13C urea & pyruvate
for advancing cancer imaging, the time is right for translating this new technology into the clinic and integrating
it into current state-of-the-art imaging approaches. This Academic-Industry partnership is critical for robustly
translating this novel imaging technology into the clinical arena, and UCSF and General Electric (GE) are
uniquely positioned to accomplish this goal together.
Although the novel hyperpolarized imaging tools and methods developed and disseminated in this academic-
industrial partnership will initially be applied to patients with prostate cancer, they will have general applicability
for a wide variety of cancers...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9869700
- **Project number:** 5R01CA214554-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** John Kurhanewicz
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $671,381
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-03-06 → 2022-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9869700

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9869700, CLINICAL TRANSLATION OF HYPERPOLARIZED 13C-UREA FOR CANCER MR MOLECULAR IMAGING (5R01CA214554-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9869700. Licensed CC0.

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