Breakthrough in MRI diagnostics

Kerstin Münnemann has been awarded the Erwin Schrödinger Prize as part of an international team. (Photo: TUK/Koziel)

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive imaging technique used, for example, in medical diagnostics (magnetic resonance tomography, MRT). To make the method more effective, Dr. rer. nat. Kerstin Münnemann, who researches at the Chair of Thermodynamics at TU Kaiserslautern (TUK), has developed a novel contrast agent as part of an international team of chemists, physicists, and engineers: hyperpolarized fumarate. Together, the researchers were able to demonstrate the methodology up to imaging. This interdisciplinary achievement has now been awarded the Helmholtz Society's Erwin Schrödinger Prize 2021, endowed with 50,000 euros.

"Magnetic resonance imaging does not interfere with the body and does not involve X-ray or ionizing radiation," explains Münnemann, who will continue her work at the new research building LASE (Laboratory for Advanced Spin Engineering) at TUK. "Therefore, MRI is fundamentally suitable — unlike other imaging methods such as computed tomography — for long-term patient monitoring. For example, when it comes to continuously monitoring the course or success of cancer therapy."

However, there is still a "catch": metabolic processes cannot be made visible because the molecules involved in these processes are present in too low concentrations to be detected by imaging. In other words, signal optimization is needed. Münnemann has made crucial preliminary work for this: Since her diploma thesis, the chemist has been using various hyperpolarization techniques to magnetically and durably label substances. "I succeeded in producing hyperpolarized fumarate using parahydrogen, an isomer of hydrogen. Fumarate is a component of the natural energy metabolism in every cell and is therefore physiologically safe. In the hyperpolarized state, the molecule exists in a particularly long-lived spin state. We cannot see this magnetically activated fumarate with NMR, but we can see the malate into which it is metabolized."

Together with her research partners, she has further developed the chemically functional process through practical experiments in living cells up to imaging. Münnemann: "Hyperpolarization is already used today in some well-equipped laboratories and clinics for MRI examinations. So far, however, the methodology has been very costly, preventing broader use." With the refined hyperpolarization technique, which is based not only on a naturally occurring molecule in the body but is also more sensitive, faster, and more cost-effective, the researchers have now laid the foundation to make metabolism-based MRI more widely and safely accessible for medical diagnostics. "This makes it possible, for example, to visualize dying tumor cells during cancer therapy — even before the tumor begins to shrink," adds the chemist.

About the Erwin Schrödinger Prize

The scientific award of the Stifterverband — Erwin Schrödinger Prize — has been recognizing outstanding scientific or technically innovative achievements since 1999, which have been made in border areas between various fields of medicine, natural sciences, and engineering sciences, and in which researchers from at least two disciplines have contributed. The prize is endowed with up to 50,000 euros. It is usually officially awarded annually during the Helmholtz Annual Conference.