Smart magnetic probes for in-vivo metrology

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) represents one of the most outstanding examples of the successful application of something that began as fundamental physics research. Together with related NMR technologies, it now impacts many fields including food, pharmaceutical, chemical, energy, and of course medical industries, where it has rapidly become one of the most widely used medical imaging and diagnostic tools. Not requiring ionizing radiation, it can benignly probe deep within the body, offering excellent soft tissue contrast and, compared with other radiological methods, high resolution imaging.

But there remains much room to further develop the technologies. Specifically, this talk will discuss several recent examples [1,2] of how work in physics and engineering is enhancing the functionality of MRI through (i) new contrast agents 10-100x more powerful than existing alternatives that enable in vivo tracking of cells down to the single cell level, (ii) new micromagnetic structures that add “color” or multiplexing capabilities to traditionally black-and-white MRI, and (iii) smart polymer – magnetic composites that enable new radio-frequency (RF) addressable microsensors, or smart probes, for quantitative sensing. The talk will focus on the basic physics and engineering behind these imaging and sensing agents, including how they are made and some example first applications. Presentation will be at a general, introductory level; no prior knowledge of NMR/MRI required.

References:
[1] Zabow et al. Nature 453, 1058 (2008)
[2] Zabow et al. Nature 520, 73 (2015)