NMR and MRI Studies of Molecular Dynamics
Key People:
- Professor William S Price, School of Science & Health and School of Medicine. Head of the Nanoscale Organisation and Dynamics Group; Director of the UWS node of the National Imaging Facility; Adjunct Professor Charles Sturt University; and Academic Course Advisor, Bachelor of Medical Science (Nanotechnology)
- Dr Reynaldo Castillo, Senior Lecturer
- Dr Bahman Ghadirian, Post Doctoral Fellow
PhD Candidates:
| Mr Dale Codling | MR and MRI studies of Restricted Diffusion |
| Mr Ryan Dean | Development of Dynamic MRI Contrasts and their Application to Biological Systems |
| Ms Yanurita Dwihapsari | Implementation and Application of Advanced Diffusion Tensor Imaging Techniques at Ultrahigh Magnetic Fields |
| Ms Batchimeg Ganbold | NMR of Ion Dynamics in Solution (including ionic liquids and salt-polymer electrolytes) |
| Mr Abhishek Gupta | NMR studies of novel supramolecular paramagnetic metal ions as highly sensitive contrast agents for MRI |
| Mr Benjamin Moroney | Advanced Numerical Modelling of NMR Diffusion Experiments |
| Mr James Stranger | Characterisation of Liquid Electrolytes using Advanced Magnetic Resonance Techniques |
| Mr Amninder Virk | Experimental and Theoretical Modelling of Diffusion in Biological Milieu |
| Mr Scott Willis | Development of Novel Technologies for Solution Phase Chemical Separations |
| Mr Mikhail Zubkov | Development of Advanced MRI Techniques for Clinical Imaging |
Honours Candidates
| Mr Jawad Karimi | 2012 |
| Ms Cynthia Khan | 2012 |
| Ms Reika Masuda | 2012 - NMR Signal Processing |
Past Group Members
| Dr Nirbhay Yadav BSc (Honours), MSc (Honours), PhD (UWS 2009) | "Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Modelling Techniques for Probing Porous Systems" - Awarded in 2009.
Publications:
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Price Group Research:
Keywords: biomolecular association, cancer imaging, conducting electrolytes, diffusion, drug binding, MRI, NMR, nanoparticle contrast agents, porous media, protein.
Collaborators (internal): Prof. J. Aldrich-Wright (SSH), A/Prof G. Dennis (SSH), Prof. A. Hennessy (SoM), Prof. J. Morley (SoM), A/Prof A. Shalliker (SSH)
Collaborators (external)
| Dr Y. Aihara (Samsung, Japan) | Prof. M. Barton (Liverpool Hospital) | Dr R. Bourne (Univ. Syd) |
| Dr S. Clarke (CSU) | A/Prof. Geoff Currie (CSU) | Prof. M. Guest (Tokyo Metro U, Japan) |
| A/Prof. K. Harris (Australian Defence Force Academy) | Prof. K. Hayamizu (AIST, Japan) | Dr L. Holloway (Liverpool Hospital) |
| A/Prof. D. Hwang (National Chung-Cheng Univ, Taiwan) | Prof. K. Jackowski (Univ. Warsaw, Poland) | A/Prof. N. Manolios (Westmead Hospital) |
| Prof. S. Matsukawa (Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, Japan) | Dr M. Moghaddam (CSIRO) | Dr S. Rogiers (National Wine & Grape Industry Centre) |
| Prof. O. Söderman (Univ. Lund, Sweden) | Prof P. Stilbs (Royal Inst. Technology, Sweden) | Prof. S. Traytak (Moscow State Regional Univ, Russia) |
Areas of Research:
The laboratory's interests span many areas of MRI, NMR, Medical Nanotechnology and Medical Physics: Particularly experimental and theoretical developments of the molecular dynamics in biological and chemical systems using MRI, relaxation and pulsed gradient spin-echo (PGSE) NMR measurements of translational diffusion. The research has applications to many areas from MRI studies of cancer and pharmaceutical screening to lithium batteries. Three current lines of research are outlined below.
Protein aggregation: Neurodegeneration (incl. Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease) is an important topic in medicine. We have been developing new magnetic resonance methods (PGSE NMR and diffusion-weighted MRI) for studying protein aggregation. In NMR, this requires better suppression of background / internal (magnetic) gradients and the huge water signal commonly encountered in biological milieu. Recent studies have resulted in new high performance water suppression and background gradient suppression NMR pulse sequences (i.e., PGSTE-WATERGATE and MAG-PGSTE) and selective RF pulses (i.e., phase modulated binomial-like sequences).
Porous media: Current models for analysing NMR diffusion studies of porous media are simplistic. We are developing more realistic models for describing diffusion in porous materials which incorporate greater resemblance to the pore geometry. These models, which include more background gradients, polydispersity and relaxation are being developed, then simulated and tested using NMR measurements.
Diffusion MRI of Biological Systems including Cancer: Biological tissue (e.g., brain, tumours, muscle) and indeed most materials (e.g., zeolites) are often porous in that they are in essence a ‘solid’ (i.e., not necessarily in the rigid sense). The transport and thermodynamic properties of fluids in porous media is closely related to the sizes and connectivity of the pores (or cell shape, dimension and macroscopic ordering). We are developing new sequences and theoretical models for diffusion MRI studies of such systems. These studies have widespread clinical significance. Studies in progress include prostate cancer and pre-eclampsia.
