Department of Radiology - Medical Physics

Nuclear Hyperpolarization for Biomedical Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of Metabolism in Tumors

Background:

Many diseases – including cancer, ischemia, and neurodegenerative diseases – are associated with characteristic metabolic alterations. Mammalian metabolism and dynamic metabolic changes in living organisms are difficult to access with current analytical tools: Either the spatial, chemical, or temporal resolution is insufficient. These limitations can be addressed by improving the sensitivity of MRI to detect the low-concentrated metabolites in the body. Such “hyperpolarized” metabolites can be tracked with high sensitivity in the body using MRI to map metabolic pathways. Bridging the gap between nuclear spin physics and medical diagnostics, hyperpolarization is a truly interdisciplinary research area with all its benefits and pitfalls. The hyperpolarization group in Freiburg is focused on the development of new hyperpolarization methods and bringing these advances to biomedical application.

In the present project we will enable the time-efficient and cost-efficient repetitive production of highly polarized and concentrated metabolically active agents inside an MRI system. These hyperpolarized agents will be used to interrogate metabolism in healthy, as well as breast cancer or leukemia bearing mice.

What we offer:

• Physics with application aiming at improving diagnostics and monitoring of cancer patients
• Emerging field of research
• Part of the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK)
• National and international cooperations (visits supported)
• State of the art equipment and infrastructure
• Competitive salary (TV-L E13, 65%)

What you will be doing:

• Designing and installing experimental setup (Fluidics of gases and liquids, reactor design, in vivo prototype)
• Programming and automating the setup (C++ based)
• Developing, testing and evaluating new hyperpolarization methods
• Applying new methods to image cancer metabolism

What we expect:

(M – must ; S – should ; N – nice to have)

• Master in Physics, Chemistry, Engineering or similar (M)
• Fluent English (M) and German (N)
• Solid background in quantum mechanics and molecular physics (S)
• Work experience (e.g. from B.Sc./M.Sc. thesis) with
  • setting up and performing experiments (M)
  • data analysis (S)
  • programming (S)
  • microcontrollers (N)
  • magnetic resonance imaging and/or spectroscopy (N)

Application and Contact:

Are you the perfect candidate? Please send your application (CV incl. publications, short cover letter) to

Dr. Andreas Schmidt (andreas.schmidt@uniklinik-freiburg.de) or Prof. Jürgen Hennig (juergen.hennig@uniklinik-freiburg.de).

Feel free to get in touch if you have questions!

Visit our Website: www.uniklinik-freiburg.de/hyperpolarization