Magnetic Imaging | Minnesota Medical Foundation

Beyond echo and angiograms

2011-11-28T22:57:45Z

Advanced heart imaging at the U allows for more accurate diagnosis

If you’ve ever had cause to see a cardiologist, your visit likely included echocardiography, or “echo.” This test, which uses sound waves to show how well the heart is pumping blood, forms the core of traditional heart imaging, along with X-ray and nuclear imaging.

But these methods may not always provide enough information for physicians to understand the cause of a patient’s symptoms or plan the best treatment.

Say you experience chest pains. Your doctor sends you for a stress test to gather information about how well your heart works during physical activity. The test doesn’t show a problem. But while traditional stress tests are good at revealing areas of decreased blood flow to the heart or past major heart attacks, they’re poor at showing whether a small heart attack might have happened.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), however, can show extremely small amounts of scar tissue or dead cells in the heart, making it possible for doctors to detect even a tiny heart attack and pinpoint the exact site and extent of the damage.

“If I stopped at the traditional stress test, I might say, ‘Everything is normal, and there is nothing to worry about,’” says Uma Valeti, M.D., who directs the University of Minnesota’s cardiovascular imaging program. “That’s totally different from me telling you, ‘You didn’t have a major heart attack, but you did have a tiny one. That tells me there is a blockage building up in your heart vessels, so we’ve got to be very aggressive with modifying your risk factors to prevent future heart attacks.’”

Valeti says the complex cases he and his colleagues see require access to leading-edge technologies. University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview and all University of Minnesota Physicians Heart locations provide that access.

The new frontier in advanced imaging includes cardiac MRI, CT (computed tomography), and PET (positron emission tomography). Valeti says these technologies open up a new level of information for every area of cardiovascular medicine.

While advanced imaging is helping to reduce the impact of heart disease on people’s lives, it also has potential to reduce health care costs by cutting down on invasive procedures and repeated testing.

Cardiac CT, for instance, offers a lightning-fast, noninvasive alternative to angiography, which requires inserting a catheter and dye into the body. “With a CT angiogram, you get a lot more information than what you get with a traditional angiogram,” says Valeti. “And all of this at a lower risk of complications and in many cases at a lower dose of X-ray exposure.”

CT can show not only a blood vessel but also the walls of the vessel, including plaque that’s building up in those walls before it causes severe blockage, as well as the heart’s four chambers and valves. It also shows the sac around the heart and adjacent lung tissue, which do not show up on a traditional angiogram but may be responsible for a patient’s symptoms, Valeti says.

The newest tool available through the University is an ammonia PET scanner. Like nuclear imaging, PET quantifies the amount of blood flowing to the heart, but it does so with far less radiation and produces a much higherquality image, Valeti says. PET can detect inflammation in the heart, check blood flow to a transplanted heart, and evaluate the results of cardiac regenerative therapies such as stem cell treatments and gene therapy.

“The University of Minnesota is one of only a handful of centers in the country that can offer all of these imaging modalities to patients,” says Valeti. “Our goal is to make this one of the top 10 imaging programs in the country in the next five years.”

Most important, he says, is that University physicians will be able to provide these advanced techniques to help “the right patient at the right time with the right technology.”

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A dramatic difference

2011-11-28T22:21:10Z

Traditional imaging techniques work well most of the time. But sometimes the next level of imaging is needed to solve a puzzle, as in the case of a 42-year-old man who was having breathing problems and passing out repeatedly.

The patient saw Jody Rowland, M.D., a cardiologist at North Memorial Medical Center. Rowland reviewed the man’s electrocardiogram, which showed that his heart was stopping intermittently and displaying dangerous rhythm problems.

Rowland ordered a cardiac MRI scan to be performed at University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview, which revealed that the man’s unexplained heart stoppage was due to intense inflammation in the heart muscle and multiple areas of dead tissue. He was diagnosed with cardiac sarcoidosis.

The patient was referred to University heart failure specialist Peter Eckman, M.D., for treatment and received a defibrillator to prevent a future cardiac arrest.

“This highlights the immense benefits these techniques can offer to patients and physicians in our community,” says Uma Valeti, M.D., leader of the University’s heart imaging program.

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A better picture of cancer

2011-09-15T17:52:18Z

Researchers and clinicians join forces to bring new imaging capabilities to cancer diagnosis and treatment

For several decades, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has given cancer researchers and physicians a sensitive tool to help track down tumors.

“Standard MRI provides great anatomic information about soft-tissue structure and distribution, which is critical in detecting brain and body cancers. You can see things you can’t with X-rays or CAT scans, like the difference between tumor and fatty tissue,” says Greg Metzger, Ph.D., a University of Minnesota imaging expert who specializes in using MR technology to study prostate cancer. MRI also produces images with harmless radiofrequency waves and powerful magnets rather than the radiation used by X-rays and CT scans, he says.

Still, University scientists believe there is room for improvement. Despite its benefits, MRI is an expensive test and hasn’t been practical for widespread application in certain areas of medicine—for instance, in cancer screening.

Now University physicians are working closely with research colleagues at the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) to push the capabilities of MRI and explore new ways it could be used in cancer detection, diagnosis, and therapy.

“The goal,” says Metzger, “is to bring those capabilities to patient management and treatment.”

Detecting breast cancer earlier

MRI is proving to be tremendously versatile. “We’re still learning everything it’s capable of,” says Michael Garwood, Ph.D., associate director of the CMRR.

By manipulating the pulse of radiofrequency waves and altering computer algorithms that process images, researchers can investigate several aspects of the same tissue—showing not only the location of a tumor, but also the chemical composition of malignant cells or blood vessels that have sprung up to help the tumor grow. Such information helps doctors characterize the mass, which in turn may allow them to catch cancers early and recommend treatment plans.

MRI turns out to be better than mammography, for example, at detecting breast tumors at an early stage while they are small, Garwood says. This makes the technique an excellent screening tool for women at the highest risk of developing breast cancer.

MRI also can help determine whether a suspicious mass is invasive cancer. With the help of an injection of contrast dye, MRI can reveal “leaky” blood vessels, characteristic of the type that feed malignancies.

“This technique can also give us information about the margins of a tumor, which may help guide a surgeon in removing it,” Garwood says.

MRI may soon be used to determine whether a woman is benefiting from chemotherapy as well.

Douglas Yee, M.D., director of the Masonic Cancer Center, and CMRR researcher Patrick Bolan, Ph.D., have studied the ability of MR technology to measure the chemical choline, a “fingerprint” of tumor cells. With a technique called spectroscopy, they can detect a drop in choline levels after a woman undergoes a single day of chemotherapy. They’re now determining whether the technique can be applied in medical centers to steer breast cancer treatment.

Guiding prostate cancer biopsies

When it comes to prostate cancer, MRI offers a unique view of difficult-to-access tissue. And now, as University professor Timothy Wilt, M.D., M.P.H., found in a recent study that surgery offered no better outcomes than active surveillance (otherwise known as “watchful waiting”) for men with nonaggressive prostate cancers, determining who benefits most from each approach is even more critical.

The CMRR’s Metzger is working with urologic surgeon Christopher Warlick, M.D., Ph.D., to study cancerous tissue from men who have undergone prostate surgery to identify the extent and aggressiveness of their tumors.

Warlick is optimistic about the latest application for MRI to help biopsy the prostate. After a standard MRI scan detects a suspicious area in the gland, an MRI-guided needle can take samples from specific locations.

“We now have the opportunity to home in on the very worst-appearing lesions, likely leading to more accurate grading of the disease and more informed treatment decisions,” Warlick says. “This may be very important for men considering active surveillance for their prostate cancer.”

Improving the patient experience

As science points to new benefits of MR technology, the latest CMRR developments may make the scanning process better for patients.

Garwood was playing with his computer at home when he had a physics epiphany: he realized it’s possible to condense a two-stage process (creating a radiofrequency wave and then capturing an image) into one step. The condensed MRI technique he developed, called SWIFT, was patented by the University of Minnesota and licensed exclusively by GE Healthcare last April.

SWIFT images are captured more quickly and make it possible to see more subtle contrasts in soft tissue, and, for the first time, hard tissue like bone and teeth.

The new SWIFT-based scanners, which could go into production in the next year or so, may cut down the time patients need to spend in the scanning machine, Garwood says. Better yet, SWIFT doesn’t make the loud banging noise of traditional MRI machines.

“Mike is really paying attention to the clinical issues,” says Yee.

And that’s an increasingly good thing, as these advanced technologies continue to become more useful in the clinic.

“I believe MRI will become even more indispensable in diagnosis and monitoring of patients as time goes by,” Garwood says.

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The next frontier

2011-04-27T18:36:00Z

U’s Center for Magnetic Resonance Research to play a leading role in $30 million project to map connections in the human brain

Rumors were flying that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was thinking big. Science’s next great frontier would aim to unlock mysteries of the brain, and the NIH was ready to put up big money to make it happen.

Kamil Ugurbil, Ph.D., knew that the University of Minnesota’s Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) had to be a part of that study.

“We’ve developed a track record [of] pushing the limits of brain imaging technology,” he says of the world-renowned research entity he has led since 1991.

So when the news came last October that the CMRR and collaborators at Washington University in St. Louis had been selected to receive a $30 million grant to co-lead the breathtaking enterprise known as the Human Connectome Project, Ugurbil couldn’t have been more pleased.

Over the next five years, researchers involved in the high-profile project will use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques and additional brain imaging and genetics to map neural connectivity in the brain, all the while advancing the MR technology available for research and patient care.

“There’s undoubtedly a lot to do in a relatively short period of time,” Ugurbil says.

But it’s a challenge worth accepting. Investigators expect that the Human Connectome Project will have a transformative impact on science and health, leading to a much more detailed understanding of how brain circuitry changes as people age and how it differs in people who have psychiatric and neurologic illnesses.

A robust collection

The research plan for the University of Minnesota/Washington University portion of the Human Connectome Project looks like this: CMRR researchers will begin scanning the brains of 1,200 healthy volunteers with a 3 Tesla MRI magnet. Most hospitals’ MRI scanners are 1.5 Tesla.

The volunteers will be sets of twins (identical and fraternal) and their siblings, two degrees of relatedness that will help to reveal how genes and the environment shape brain circuitry and to pinpoint genetic variations between relatives.

After University faculty refine the imaging process and technology, the 3 Tesla machine will be moved down the highway to St. Louis, where the bulk of volunteers will undergo scans. There, researchers at Washington University will continue to amass data, creating a robust database of information about neural structures and connectivity.

Back at the CMRR, scientists will continue to focus on developing and optimizing brain imaging. MRI machines can be programmed in various modalities, so volunteers’ brain scans will cover several types of images. One type is the standard MR image, like that used in hospitals, revealing anatomical structures of the brain. Researchers also will capture functional MRI (fMRI) images that reveal regions of the brain “lighting up” as they become active, both when volunteers are resting and performing small tasks like tapping their fingers.

Yet another type of imaging, diffusion-weighted MRI, will provide detailed maps of nerve bundles in the brain; areas showing dense bundles of nerves indicate more significant connections. These scans can offer critical clinical information, for instance, for neurosurgeons who want to intervene in one region of the brain without disturbing neural connections to another area, explains University imaging expert Noam Harel, Ph.D. Ultimately, the technique may even provide neurosurgeons with individualized maps of each patient’s brain, making brain surgery quicker and more precise.

Significantly, the vast trove of information produced through the Human Connectome Project will be available to the public. Even the algorithms developed to interpret signals from the MR data will be publicly available, notes University electrical engineer and signal processing expert Guillermo Sapiro, Ph.D.

“Any scientist at any institution will have the opportunity to use the data for further research,” Harel adds.

Early progress

Even as it begins to launch formal studies through the Human Connectome Project, the CMRR already has made important advances in how imaging is done. The group and its collaborators began investigating whether it would be possible to reduce the time, typically 30 to 40 minutes, needed for an imaging session. They found that they could accelerate scanning time many times over, both reducing how long a person might need to lie very still in the scanner and exponentially increasing the number of images of living tissue they can get in that timeframe.

“That gives us much better statistical power and new insights about what might be going on in the brain over time,” says Ugurbil of the finding, which his team published in the online journal PLoS ONE. “And we expect many more developments like that along the way.”

The first in the world to have a 7 Tesla scanner and now the only institution to have two of them, the CMRR also will use its 7 Tesla magnets to scan the brains of 200 volunteers through the Human Connectome Project.

The NIH is taking note of every step along the way.

“There’s huge enthusiasm for this project, which was evident from the beginning with the investment of such resources at a time when NIH funding is relatively tight,” Ugurbil says.

The enthusiasm for the field itself is pushing the scientists, too, he adds. The fundamental information they gather about healthy brains may someday provide a useful comparison in studies of disease, for example, in patients with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.

Says Ugurbil, “We know that this project is going to be a prelude to all kinds of research in the future.”

Learn more

Human Connectome Project By the Numbers

$30 million

Amount the University of Minnesota and Washington University will receive from the National Institutes of Health to co-lead the study

9

University of Minnesota researchers involved in the project

33

Collaborators across the country who will contribute to the study

1,200

Healthy adults whose brain connections will be mapped as part of the research

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Researchers develop technique to boost MRI imaging speed

2011-04-25T15:15:00Z

An international team of scientists led by the University of Minnesota and Advanced MRI Technologies of California has discovered a way to produce magnetic resonance images of the brain at speeds dramatically faster than previously possible.

The new technique, which multiplies data acquisition, works on all modern MRI scanners, so it can be used immediately at research institutions worldwide.

“This new technique is a very fundamental step forward and — down the road — will impact human body imaging as well,” says Kamil Ugurbil, Ph.D., director of the University’s Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR).

Investigators from the University of Minnesota; University of California, Berkeley; Washington University; and Oxford University collaborated on the study. The work was facilitated and supported by the Human Connectome Project, a National Institutes of Health- funded effort to use MRI scans to map the connections of the human brain.

The faster imaging, coupled with the CMRR’s high-powered, ultra-high-field magnet capabilities, will give researchers unprecedented looks at the human brain, predicts Ugurbil, who also is coprincipal investigator of the Wash U-UMinn Human Connectome Project consortium.

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Center for Magnetic Resonance Research expansion opens

2011-04-25T15:13:00Z

The University of Minnesota’s world-renowned Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) in December opened a 65,000-square-foot expansion.

The expanded space will house one of the world’s largest and most powerful human imaging magnets, a 10.5 Tesla magnet capable of delivering the sharpest images ever seen through magnetic resonance imaging technology. It also houses the new Center for Clinical Imaging Research.

“The magnetic imaging capabilities made possible by the CMRR’s expansion have opened doors for new research such as the Human Connectome Project that will map the connections of the human brain and establish the treatments and health care solutions of the next decade and beyond,” says center director Kamil Ugurbil, Ph.D.

CMRR’s $53.2 million expansion is part of a larger investment in the University’s Biomedical Discovery District, a $292 million commitment to build 400,000 square feet of new research space.

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U collaborates on $26M study on risks for Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline

2010-11-16T17:49:01Z

The University of Minnesota School of Public Health, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, and three other collaborating academic medical centers have received $26 million from the National Institutes of Health to identify risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease and related forms of cognitive decline.

The new funding will pay for the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Neurocognitive Study, a comprehensive examination of thousands of patients that will include detailed neurocognitive testing and brain imaging. The project builds on the influential ARIC study, a large-scale investigation of the risk factors for heart disease and stroke.

Using the wealth of information collected during ARIC’s 20-plus years, the study is expected to further illuminate causes of dementia, giving researchers a window into early physiological changes that eventually culminate in the development of Alzheimer’s.

Of particular interest is the role that vascular risk factors in middle age—including high blood pressure, diabetes, and lifestyle—play in the development of Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline later in life.

Researchers believe Alzheimer’s disease likely isn’t caused by a single factor, but rather by a complex process involving multiple factors interacting and accumulating over decades.

Previous findings have pointed to the importance of vascular risk factors in predicting decline in cognitive functions such as memory and processing speed.

As a primary site, the University will receive $4.3 million for its portion of the study. Researchers here will work with the University of Mississippi Medical Center as well as Wake Forest University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Researchers hone in on markers for AOA2

2009-04-01T20:03:25Z

Since it was identified through genetic testing in the early 2000s, ataxia with oculomotor apraxia type 2 (AOA2) has become the second most commonly diagnosed form of recessive ataxia. But while more individuals are being diagnosed with AOA2, research on the disease remains scant. That paucity in data shouldn’t last long, however, thanks to a team of researchers at the University of Minnesota’s world-renowned Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR).

Under the direction of ataxia researcher Gülin Öz, Ph.D., radiology research associate Isabelle Iltis, Ph.D., is collecting information from people with AOA2 as well as healthy volunteers about the neurochemicals and brain regions involved in AOA2.

Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, a scan that can measure neurochemical defects within the brain, Iltis hopes to identify which neurochemicals are playing a role in the disease and which brain regions are most affected by the defects. Study participants also receive a neurological exam and undergo a lumbar puncture for spinal fluid analysis.

“Every type of ataxia has its own neurochemical ‘fingerprint,’ so to speak,” explains Iltis. “With the MR spectroscopy and other data, we can associate specific neurochemical defects with this specific form of ataxia.”

Since May 2006, Iltis—together with CMRR research coordinator Diane Hutter, R.N., and collaborators Khalaf Bushara, M.D., and Christopher Gomez, M.D., Ph.D.—has recruited eight patients with AOA2 and about 23 healthy volunteers to participate in the study. In less than three years, she has learned that the two regions of the brain most impaired by AOA2 are the vermis and the cerebellar hemisphere, both located in the cerebellum.

“We now have a neurochemical profile of AOA2 within these two regions of the brain, and it’s distinctly different from what we see with other types of ataxia,” she explains.

People with AOA2 have come from all over North America to participate in this study. Kory Tabor, a resident of Madison, Wisconsin, is one of them. Tabor was the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with AOA2. Now 31 years old, she stays positive by participating in research.

“The way I deal with it is to realize that I can do something about this disease, that I can be involved in finding new things that will help people who may not yet know they have AOA2,” she says.

In developing a neurochemical profile of AOA2, Iltis hopes that one day degeneration in the cerebellum can be detected earlier—even before symptoms appear.With earlier detection, there’s a better chance of intervening with a treatment before symptoms become debilitating, she says.

And for now, Iltis is pleased to have the opportunity to spend time with a dedicated group of research volunteers.

“I am really impressed with the people who are participating in this study,” she says. “They are really amazing, motivated individuals.Whenever a patient is coming in for a scan, I know I am going to meet a really incredible, enthusiastic person that day. It’s a nice way to work.”

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Picturing success: Imaging and engineering offer intriguing new ideas for improving islet cell transplants

2009-04-01T17:12:46Z

When the idea of transplanting insulin-producing islet cells first emerged many years ago, hope ran high that a cure for type 1 diabetes could be just on the horizon. Reality, however, has yet to catch up with the dream.

Islets are not easy to keep alive through pancreas procurement, preservation and islet isolation, purification, and infusion into the liver, where the cells ideally begin producing insulin for their new host. Most transplants appear successful at first, but after two years more than half of recipients are back to needing other sources of insulin.

Klearchos Papas, Ph.D., director of islet processing research and development with the University’s Schulze Diabetes Institute, aims to change that with the use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), which can provide information about the quality of islets and also pinpoint the location of islets within the body. The University is a world leader in these technologies, allowing researchers to see the body in ways they have never seen it before.

Papas and colleague Bruce Hammer, Ph.D., of the Department of Radiology developed an NMR compatible pancreas preservation container making it possible to noninvasively and nondestructively check the health of the pancreas before islet isolation. Islet isolation alone can cost more than $20,000, so there is value in being able to distinguish between viable and nonviable cells early in the process. If cells are compromised, the process is halted, saving time, money, and dashed hopes.

Currently, Papas is exploring a collaboration with researchers at the University’s Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) to monitor and improve the fate of islets after transplantation. The idea is to use NMR to see where the islets engraft and at what point islets lose viability under various protocols so procedures can be improved. “We don’t have a way to do that post-transplant except to look at blood sugar,” Papas says.

That’s where he’s hoping to tap the expertise of CMRR associate director Michael Garwood, Ph.D. An internationally renowned imaging scientist, Garwood is experienced in developing novel techniques for applying magnetic resonance to solving research problems. And he is already involved in diabetes research of another sort. For more than a decade, Garwood and Elizabeth Seaquist, M.D., director of the Center for Diabetes Research, together with several other CMRR scientists, have collaborated on efforts to use magnetic resonance to look at glucose and glycogen in the brain. Seaquist believes these substances could hold the key to understanding and overcoming hypoglycemia unawareness, a sometimes-fatal condition in which persons with diabetes fail to recognize when their blood sugar levels plummet too low.

Garwood’s colleague Greg Metzger, Ph.D., and Papas are exploring ways to apply NMR to noninvasively assess islet location and islet health simultaneously. That capability would be invaluable for pinpointing when things start to go awry after transplant. “That’s where CMRR has succeeded—in developing new imaging techniques used to measure not just anatomy, but physiology, function, and a lot more,” Garwood says.

Papas is also enthusiastic about involving Garwood and Metzger in a project with colleagues in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science to use biomaterials to protect islets against stress during transplantation and onslaught by the immune system afterward.

Magnetic resonance technology could prove invaluable in testing such materials as they are being perfected. It could also help improve islet survival by making sure blood vessels surrounding the implantation site are developed enough to support the transplant.

Papas’s overarching goal is to be able to keep islets healthy before, during, and after transplant. “That’s the vision, but there’s lot of work to be done,” he says. By Mary Hoff

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A powerful force

2009-01-01T21:33:34Z

The Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, soon to house the world’s strongest magnet, is pushing the technology’s limits

Some scientists make strides in biomedical research by acquiring state-of-the-art equipment and then using it to answer questions about living systems. “Good research can be done in that fashion,” says Kamil Ugurbil, Ph.D., director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR).

But Ugurbil takes a different approach. A chemical physicist by training, he has always veered away from using new machines straight out of the box. Instead, he likes to develop novel technologies and pushes them beyond what anyone ever imagined they could do. Even at points when other experts in the field believed magnetic resonance tools had reached their limits, Ugurbil and his colleagues have persisted, extending the capabilities of the magnets and finding new applications for them.

He puts it this way: “We’re excited when we can get information that is beyond the bread and butter of the technology.” That desire to test the untapped potential of new high-field magnets has placed the CMRR among world leaders in imaging. It’s also stretched every parameter of the discipline.

Today the burgeoning center, which Ugurbil has led since 1991, has 21 faculty members and six high-field magnets, with an additional “ultra-high-field” magnet on the way. As the latest construction project in the University’s developing research park, called the Biomedical Discovery

District, the CMRR building is undergoing a renovation and large-scale expansion expected to be completed by fall 2010. A $53 million budget, provided in part by the state, will add approximately 65,000 square feet for new research and clinical studies.

The expanded building will house a new magnet that will be the highest field ever attained for human studies. (The magnets are referred to by the strength of their magnetic fields; typical magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] machines used for hospital diagnoses have a 1.5 Tesla magnet.) And an astounding 16.4 Tesla magnet currently being installed in the renovated section of the building will be the largest magnet in the country; the only other one of its kind is in Europe. These technologies are so new that even Ugurbil isn’t certain what they’ll be capable of revealing, although his team’s track record with new tools suggests that remarkable discoveries are on the horizon.

A paradigm shift

The changing geographic location of magnetic resonance (MR) research on the University campus tells the story about the rising promise and prominence of Ugurbil’s group. When Ugurbil arrived at the University of Minnesota in 1978 after working at Bell Laboratories and then at Columbia University, his lab was housed with the Gray Freshwater Biological Institute, located on the St. Paul campus, far from the University’s medical center. (The institute is no longer part of the University.)

At Bell Labs, Ugurbil had written papers about applying MR spectroscopy to cellular metabolism that would shortly become classics. At the University, he intended to continue exploring what magnetic resonance technology could do with cells and even intact organs.

But then, with a program project grant from the National Institutes of Health and matching funds from the University’s administration, the Freshwater Biological Institute obtained a 4.7 Tesla magnet with a bore capable of holding small animals. Ugurbil’s group began to think about studying intact living organisms with the high-field magnet.

“We had the basis to believe we could succeed in that area,” Ugurbil says. The magnet was so new that the group had to develop its own software applications to use it. But as they succeeded in attaining useful images of rat organs, they became intrigued by a bigger challenge: applying the technology to humans.

It turns out that humans are complicated subjects for MR studies. Both building the high-field magnet to accommodate a person and creating an image as the magnetic fields increase become more difficult. In the late 1980s, no groups anywhere were having success with increased field strength for human imaging.

“It was accepted at the time that 1 to 1.5 [Tesla] would be the optimal magnetic field for doing MR research and for clinical diagnoses,” says Michael Garwood, Ph.D., associate director of the CMRR, who was then a postdoc at the University.

Higher and higher

But keen on improving the magnets’ resolution and sensitivity, Ugurbil linked his group with the Medical School’s radiology department. Bill Thompson, M.D., the department chair at the time and an ardent supporter of advancing MR research—aided by David Brown, M.D., who was dean of the Medical School—enabled Ugurbil to acquire one of the first industry-built 4 Tesla systems. The instrument was set up in the CMRR’s first home, a building near the University’s medical center on East River Road.

Acquiring that magnet involved a leap of faith, Ugurbil acknowledges today. Even industry members had abandoned the idea of developing a 4 Tesla magnet to study humans; the images it produced were less clear than a standard magnetic resonance image. But Ugurbil believed the magnet’s higher sensitivity offered an opportunity to map brain activity, and his group developed strategies to address some of the confounding factors.

He and his team forged ahead with plans to use the magnet to study increased oxygenation in areas of the brain. In collaboration with Bell Laboratories, they mapped active neuronal regions of the brain in living subjects, a technique known as functional imaging or fMRI. At the same time, Garwood demonstrated that, contrary to expectations at the time, it was feasible to obtain beautiful anatomical images of the human brain at 4 Tesla.

“The very first experiments we did on the 4 Tesla were great successes,” recalls Ugurbil. They offered a paradigm shift in how MR could be used.

At the time, along with the 4 Tesla machine, the group had two magnets for in vivo animal studies and continued to advance MR spectroscopy. But with little room to expand, and with an interest in attaining new magnets, in 1998 the CMRR moved into its current building, a low, brightly lit structure that helps anchor the emerging research park on the north side of the University’s new TCF Bank Stadium.

Over the next decade, the group acquired an array of new magnets for both animal and human research, and the building underwent three separate renovations to accommodate them. The 7 Tesla, 90 cm bore magnet the group brought online in 1999 was the world’s first of its kind developed for human studies. This was made possible by major support from the W. M. Keck Foundation, the University of Minnesota, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health.

In 2002, a $4.5 million gift from the W. M. Keck Foundation was instrumental in developing a unique 9.4 Tesla, 65 cm bore imaging system capable of accommodating human studies, again the world’s first. Each of these steps to higher magnetic fields has yielded major gains in sensitivity, image resolution and specificity (for functional imaging), and chemical resolution—the ability to distinguish neurochemicals from one another (using MR spectroscopy).

Focused on the brain

For University researchers from a variety of disciplines, the collection of magnets and the in-house expertise at the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research offer unparalleled opportunities to study diseases. With funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, University psychiatry professor Kelvin Lim, M.D., for example, has collected magnetic resonance images of anatomical differences in the brains of people with schizophrenia. In particular, he’s looking at the gray matter deficit that occurs early during the disease course.

At the same time, he’s been able to measure changes in brain activity using fMRI. The studies so far have looked at humans in the CMRR’s 3 Tesla magnet, but Lim hopes to develop techniques to use the center’s even higher-resolution 9.4 Tesla magnet to do magnetic resonance spectroscopy, which will offer a glimpse of specific neurochemical changes in schizophrenic patients.

“Access to this type of hardware gives us a tremendous advantage here,” he says. Ultimately, these refined views of the brain may reveal subcategories of schizophrenia, each with its own unique characteristics. “One of my goals is to get to the point,” Lim says, “where we have important biomarkers [for each subcategory] that can help us guide treatment.”

Down the hall, CMRR biochemist Gülin Öz, Ph.D., is studying the effects on the brain of a mutant gene that causes a neurodegenerative disease known as spinocerebellar ataxia. In humans, where her MR investigations began, the genetic condition eventually results in irreversible damage to the cerebellum, causing movement problems like loss of balance and coordination as well as awkward gait. But as she sought more specific and controlled biochemical information about what was happening to the cells, Öz redirected her MR spectroscopy studies to look at the brains of mice that have the mutation.

In collaboration with ataxia expert Harry Orr, Ph.D., in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology and Institute of Human Genetics, who provided a mouse model for the disease, Öz is conducting research to pinpoint chemical precursors to the devastating structural changes that the neurons undergo.

“It’s been shown that if you can intervene early on in the disease, you can reverse the changes and rescue the cells before they die,” Öz explains. What’s more, better understanding of the neurochemistry may reveal commonalities among a range of neurodegenerative disorders, providing information about other diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Other projects delve into different aspects of various disease processes, from a study taking place with the Mayo Clinic that looks at the amyloid plaques that form in people with Alzheimer’s disease (researchers at the CMRR were the first ever to visualize those plaques in living organisms) to a collaboration with University of Minnesota diabetes researcher Elizabeth “Betsy” Seaquist, M.D., who is investigating how diabetic “sugar crashes” affect metabolism in the brain.

A $7.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health in 2006 helps ensure that the CMRR’s state-of-the-art equipment is available to these and other neurosciences researchers across the University.

An unprecedented resource

Now, with sights set on bringing in new ultra-high-field magnets, the CMRR faces new research possibilities—and new challenges. Even though the 16.4 Tesla magnet for studying animals is powerful enough to visualize a process as minute as the development of a rat embryo, it may take years to develop the methodologies that can take full advantage of the magnet’s capabilities. In typical style, Ugurbil pushed to acquire the tools to get that work started. (The project received University support as well as $2 million from the NIH.)

What’s clear is that the work Ugurbil began 25 years ago has created an unprecedented resource. “There’s no setup quite like the one we have here, in scope of instrumentation and quality of leadership,” states Charles Moldow, M.D., vice dean for research and operations in the Medical School.

The construction planned for the research park around the CMRR will situate the building among other medical research as it’s never been positioned before, notes Kevin Ross, capital planning project manager for the expansion. New skyways linking the building to its neighbors will connect it with labs in such fields as neuroscience, immunology, and stem cell research. Until now, the building has “stood very much isolated from campus, kind of on the outskirts,” says Ross. “Now, when the CMRR expansion is completed, it will be in the heart of a state-of-the-art research community.”

By Kate Ledger

Web Extras

Audio

Listen: Kelvin Lim, M.D., describes how MRIs help researchers understand the schizophrenia.

Audio

Listen: Kamil Ugurbil, Ph.D., describes how functional imaging is being used to study the brain.

Audio

Listen: Kamil Ugurbil, Ph.D., describes how the scanning process works

Companion story: A new tool for evaluating breast tumors

Magnetic resonance imaging has long been studied as a noninvasive tool for detecting breast tumors. But the technology still can’t always discern whether the lump is benign or malignant. Read more.

About the 9.4T magnet

The 9.4T magnet pictured behind Dr. Kamil Ugurbil is part of the world’s highest-field magnetic resonance system for human imaging. Initiated with an NIH-NCRR grant to Dr.Thomas Vaughan while at Harvard, the system was completed with significant funding from the W. M. Keck Foundation and the University. See: Vaughan JT, DelaBarre L, Snyder C, Tian J, Akgun C, Shrivastava D, Olson C, Adriany G, Strupp J, Andersen P, Gopinath A, Van de Moortele P-F, Garwood M, Ugurbil K. “9.4T Human MRI: Preliminary Results,” Magn Reson Med 56:1274-1282(2006).

About the images in this story

Brain and breast images:

Vaughan JT, Adriany G, Snyder C, Bolinger L, Liu H, Tian J, Ugurbil, K. “An Efficient High Frequency Body Coil for High Field MRI,” Magn Reson Med 52:851-859(2004).

Slideshow images:

Vaughan JT, Adriany G, Snyder C, Bolinger L, Liu H, Tian J, Ugurbil, K. “An Efficient High Frequency Body Coil for High Field MRI,” Magn Reson Med 52:851-859(2004).

Vaughan JT, Snyder CJ, DelaBarre LJ, Bolan PJ, Tian J, Bolinger L, Adriany G, Andersen P, Strupp J, Ugurbil K. “Whole-body Imaging at 7T: Preliminary Results,” Magn Reson Med61:224-248(2009).

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A new tool for evaluating breast tumors

2009-01-01T17:27:23Z

Magnetic resonance imaging has long been studied as a noninvasive tool for detecting breast tumors, and in fact, has nearly 100 percent sensitivity for detecting breast cancer. But the technology, which offers telling views of a tumor’s morphology, margins, and associated blood vessels, still can’t always discern whether the lump is benign or malignant.

A decade ago, some groups began looking at lumps using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, which can detect choline, a chemical that increases in the presence of a cancerous tumor. Then, in 1999, oncologist Douglas Yee, M.D., director of the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, and Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) associate director Michael Garwood, Ph.D., became curious about using MR spectroscopy from another angle: Could it be used to quantify the presence of choline and could the amount it revealed determine whether a therapy was working?

What the researchers found using a 4 Tesla research magnet was that spectroscopy could pinpoint the choline levels, says Patrick Bolan, Ph.D., who joined the project as a graduate student a decade ago and continues to advance this line of research as a CMRR faculty member today. Even further, their experiments determined, a tumor that was responding to an effective drug would show a drop in choline within a single day, and the technology was sensitive enough to detect the decrease.

That pilot study, published in 2004 in the journal Radiology, has led to a multicenter trial now under way using MR spectroscopy to get a glimpse of how tumors are responding to chemotherapy one day after it’s given. One long-term challenge will be whether the highly technical spectroscopy can be implemented with standard magnets for easy, widespread use in a clinical setting, but the potential benefits of the technology seem clear.

“If you can actually determine whether a drug works after a day, you can switch drugs or try new ones without exposing a patient to a long-term course [of chemotherapy]. There are no other tools like this one in oncology right now,” Bolan says. “It could have a very big impact.”

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Sugar on the brain

2008-10-01T16:49:05Z

Key to diabetes care is managing how the body handles sugar. Glucose is stored as glycogen in tissues throughout the body until it’s called on to provide energy. But little is known about what happens to glycogen stored in the brain.

“What glycogen is doing there and whether it’s metabolically active hasn’t been defined‚ particularly in humans‚” explains Elizabeth Seaquist, M.D., a professor of endocrinology and diabetes at the University of Minnesota. “We haven’t had a way to measure it.”

Seaquist‚ who holds the Pennock Family Land-Grant Chair in Diabetes Research‚ has long suspected that glycogen content in brain tissue may change dramatically in people with type 1 diabetes who suffer from hypoglycemia unawareness. These patients‚ who’ve lost the ability to sense when their blood sugar is low‚ might develop large concentrations of brain glycogen‚ a compensatory response to prolonged periods of low blood sugar. Moreover‚ that glycogen might be metabolized in a unique way.

Two years ago‚ Seaquist and an interdisciplinary team of investigators at the University’s Center for Magnetic Resonance Research—one of the world’s top imaging labs—began to test whether it’s possible to see changes in brain glycogen using high-field magnetic spectroscopy.

They gave healthy subjects a non-radioactive isotope that gets incorporated into glycogen in the brain and then slowly lowered subjects’ blood sugar. As the research participants lay in the hull of the magnet‚ investigators monitored the tagged molecules to see whether brain glycogen changed over time.

The results were clear. Researchers were able to quantify brain glycogen and see marked decreases after hypoglycemia. They were even able to determine how long it took for healthy brains to put the glycogen to use.

“Using spectroscopy‚ we’re able to measure brain glycogen content as we’ve never been able to before‚” Seaquist says.

Now her team is beginning to study patients with type 1 diabetes who have hypoglycemia unawareness‚ comparing their brain glycogen metabolism with the measurements from healthy subjects. The results may reveal more about the conditions necessary for the complication to occur.

“As we know more about how hypoglycemia unawareness happens‚” Seaquist says‚ “we’ll have a leg up on developing therapies to prevent it.”

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U imaging pioneer joins Institute of Medicine

2008-01-01T22:45:38Z

University professor Kamil Ugurbil, Ph.D., a pioneer in using ultrahigh magnetic fields to map areas of the brain, has been inducted into the prestigious Institute of Medicine.

Ugurbil, a professor in the departments of neurosciences, radiology, and medicine and director of the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) at the Medical School, was one of 65 new members inducted in October.

“It’s a great pleasure to welcome these distinguished and influential individuals to the Institute of Medicine,” says IOM president Harvey Fineberg. “Election is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of medicine and health.”

Ugurbil’s use of ultrahigh magnetic fields to conduct magnetic resonance imaging studies has allowed researchers to map brain activity noninvasively, leading to a better understanding of such disorders as Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses.

In 1982 Ugurbil joined the University, where he started in vivo magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy research, which ultimately led to the creation of the CMRR. He currently holds the McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Radiology at the University.

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CMRR researcher receives Gold Medal Award

2007-10-01T22:01:18Z

University of Minnesota Medical School professor Michael Garwood, Ph.D., received the 2007 Gold Medal Award at the Joint Annual Meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and the European Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology this summer.

Garwood, associate director of the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) at the Medical School and a member of the Cancer Center’s Breast Cancer Research Program, is internationally recognized for incorporating magnetic resonance imaging with magnetic resonance spectroscopy technology to noninvasively diagnose cancer and monitor response to cancer therapies. During his acceptance speech in Berlin, Garwood thanked CMRR director Kamil Ugurbil, Ph.D., who won the Gold Medal in 1996.

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Keeping radiology at the forefront

2007-10-01T20:29:05Z

Grateful for past ties to the radiology department, couple helps secure its future

The field of radiology looked a little different when Harvey Stone, M.D., studied at the University of Minnesota Medical School in the 1940s. No one taught ultrasound, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, or positron emission tomography—standard subjects for today’s students.

“We more or less just had X-ray studies,” says Stone.

Still, his experience in the department deeply impressed him and set the stage for a successful career as a radiologist. Among his favorite professors were E. T. Bell, M.D., Leo Rigler, M.D., and Wilhelm Stenstrom, Ph.D. Following his residency, Stone spent two years training under Stenstrom, who started the University’s radiation therapy program—still in its infancy at the time.

“I felt I owed them something,” says Stone. “The University gave me a great future.” He and his wife, Evelyn, acted on that feeling of gratitude last December, when they made a $1 million bequest from their retirement assets to the Department of Radiology. The Dr. Harvey W. and Evelyn L. Stone Endowed Professorship in Radiology will help the department attract and retain outstanding faculty in support of the University’s research mission.

The Stones’ generosity will help keep the department at the forefront of medicine, says department chair Charles Dietz, M.D., who is looking forward to the planned expansion of the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research and to “broadening imaging research to encompass many different axes, especially the neurosciences and cancer.”

Private philanthropy advances education and research, says Dietz. “The money might fund a continuing medical education course, a visiting professorship within a residency program, a research assistant, or a pilot project for an eventual NIH grant.”

The Stones, who met in junior high in North Minneapolis and started “going steady” as sophomores at the University, share fond memories of their time at the U. They spent many evenings together in Northrop Auditorium listening to Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra concerts conducted by Eugene Ormandy.

“We got married in 1943, when Harvey was in medical school,” Evelyn says. Medical School fees at the time were $37.50 per quarter, she adds.

Harvey Stone recalls a lecture by an internist who had just returned from an infectious diseases meeting on the East Coast. “He wrote the word ‘penicillin’ across the blackboard. It was the first time we had seen the word. The professor said, “This is going to revolutionize the treatment of disease.’”

Although the Stones settled in Long Beach, California, they like to stay connected to the University and visited their alma mater in 2005.

“Mind-boggling,” says Stone of his tour of the Radiology Department, well-known for advancing high-field-strength magnetic resonance imaging, neuroradiology, interventional radiology, pediatric radiology, and mammography. “The advances are so great and so important.”

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U receives $7.9M NIH grant to expand neuroscience imaging research

2007-01-01T16:37:27Z

The Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) received a $7.9 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) award that will open the center’s powerful imaging technology to more University neuroscience researchers.

The University was one of four institutions nationwide to receive the NIH Blueprint Grant for Neuroscience Research, and its application received the highest score of the 40 institutions that applied for the grant.

“This grant is a result of all our work on brain sciences at the CMRR,” says Kamil Ugurbil, Ph.D., director of the CMRR and McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in the Medical School. “Now we will be able to expand this work even further.”

CMRR, an interdisciplinary research lab-oratory, houses state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic resonance spectroscopy equipment for use in probing brain structure, chemistry, and function. The $7.9 million award (approximately $1.5 million each year for five years) will enable more University researchers to have access to CMRR’s highly specialized equipment and methodologies.

$1.5 million to research stem cell treatments for heart disease

The University is one of five institutions across the country to receive $1.5 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to research stem cell treatments for heart disease.

The grant will allow the University to collaborate with several other local medical institutions to create the Minnesota Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Clinical Research Network. MnCTN and the four other NIH-designated centers will form a national network to conduct clinical trials of new cell therapies for treating such conditions as heart attack and heart failure.

“Through this grant we will have the opportunity to conduct groundbreaking research that will influence research both nationally and internationally,” says Doris Taylor, Ph.D., professor of physiology and medicine, the Bakken Chair in Cardiovascular Repair, and director of the Medical School’s Center for Cardiovascular Repair—a partner in MnCTN.

Also participating in MnCTN are the University’s Division of Cardiology and the Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics Lab, the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Hennepin County Medical Center, and the Veterans Administration Medical Center.

MnCTN has proposed researching the use of bone marrow-derived cells to initiate cardiac repair after a heart attack and treating patients who have experienced heart failure with stem cells from their own bodies rather than from donated adult stem cells.

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Building momentum

2006-10-01T15:46:08Z

Brick by brick, the U is moving toward its goal of becoming one of the top three public research universities in the world

It’s a Wednesday afternoon, and things are hopping at the McGuire Translational Research Facility.

In one of the 30 offices lining the south side of the four-story building, a faculty member in the Division of Infectious Diseases and International Medicine is tapping intently at a keyboard. Just down the hall, through doors that open to a long, day-lit laboratory, a student pipettes liquid into a rack full of tubes, preparing to grow plasmids as part of a study on developing gene therapies for brain cancer. At a table looking out over the four-story atrium, three graduate students—perhaps from the Stem Cell Institute or the orphan drug program—eat late lunches from plastic containers. Upstairs and down, dozens of others are working on solutions to a spectrum of health problems: TB, HIV, malaria, Parkinson’s, spinal cord injury.

This 96,000-square-foot facility, which opened in June 2005 just north of the site of the future Gopher football stadium, is the latest addition to what is becoming a major focal point for biomedical research at the University of Minnesota. By 2009 it will be joined by another translational research building. And there are hopes for several more facilities to provide much-needed space to retain and attract top-ranked scientists as the University works to become one of the top three public research universities in the world.

“The faculties in the six schools of the Academic Health Center are remarkably productive and innovative in their research, which has enabled us to attract additional colleagues and students to the University,” says Frank Cerra, M.D., senior vice president for health sciences. “These new facilities are necessary to allow for growth in the productivity of our neuroscientists; growth in cardiovascular, infectious disease, and immunology research; as well as additional breakthroughs in cancer research. Successful recruitment of new faculty, and the fellows and researchers they bring with them, is directly tied to the facilities available to provide them work space.”

Growing room

This emerging biomedical research district got its start about a decade ago with a search for space for some really big, really strong magnets—the brawn behind two sophisticated technologies—magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic resonance spectroscopy—that allow scientists to visualize the interior of the human body. In 1998, the magnets and the researchers who use them to perform groundbreaking studies in brain mapping and cancer detection moved into a new building: the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, on the north-eastern edge of the East Bank campus. A short shuttle ride from the cluster of biomedical buildings near the Mississippi River, the new site was accessible to Academic Health Center faculty, yet had plenty of growing room.

The new CMRR joined the Lions Research Building, which provides laboratory space for the Departments of Ophthalmology, Otolaryngology, and Neurosurgery and supports research in areas including immunology, optic nerve rescue, and macular degeneration.

A research leap

As construction moved forward in this nascent research park, a building project of another sort was also under way—one that would reverberate throughout the nation’s, and the University’s, biomedical research community: the construction of a map of the human genome. Both the process and the product of the U.S. Human Genome Project, which was completed in 2003, opened the door to entirely new ways of answering questions. And—science being science—to entirely new ways of asking them, too.

Researchers who could make the most of the new information, techniques, and technologies that emerged were in high demand. Institutions that could provide the sophisticated facilities these researchers needed were able to attract them. And once they did, they found it easier to attract their colleagues, too, creating clusters of experts with the potential to generate new knowledge and new approaches to preventing, treating, and curing diseases.

Know-how

With its decades-long history of pioneering biomedical research, the University of Minnesota had the know-how to be a leader in this emerging environment.

And it was motivated. World-class researchers attract top students and grants, bolstering reputation and productivity. They generate research-based businesses—the U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that 38.1 jobs are created for every $1 million in university research carried out in Minnesota. And they develop life-saving therapies and technologies for the surrounding community and region.

Using these strengths as a foundation, the University set out to develop the state-of-the-art research facilities needed to attract and retain leaders in biomedical research. And it’s working, says Charles Moldow, M.D., associate dean for research in the Medical School. Leaders lured here by the new McGuire TRF, says Moldow, include Mark Schleiss, M.D., an internationally recognized expert in cytomegalovirus, and Meri Firpo, Ph.D., a renowned stem cell researcher from California working on treatments for diabetes.

“That could not have happened without space,” Moldow says.

Need for infrastructure

When the University set its sights last year on becoming one of the top three public research universities in the world, it was clear that biomedical research would be a big part of the picture. That meant a need for even more sophisticated lab space to retain the leading researchers already here and to bring in the hundreds more needed.

“Under President Bruininks’s strategic positioning initiative, we need to recruit a large number of new faculty,” says Medical School Dean Deborah Powell, M.D. And that, Powell says, means investing in them. “Faculty need infrastructure—buildings and equipment and support for their lab programs—to get their programs established here.”

Last spring, the Minnesota legislature got a start on meeting those needs when it approved $40 million in state funding to help pay two-thirds of the cost for a new medical biosciences building, to be constructed adjacent to the McGuire TRF. Slated to open in 2009, the facility will add some 105,000 square feet of translational research space, conference rooms, and offices for up to 40 researchers and their staff, and is expected to bring in $15 million to $20 million per year in research funding.

Need for innovation

As helpful as the new building will be, it clearly can’t accommodate the 200 new faculty and 600 new research support staff needed to keep Minnesota a world player in such key research areas as cancer, neuroscience, and infectious disease. University planners estimate that an expansion of that magnitude will take at least four more buildings.

And that, says Richard Pfutzenreuter, University vice president and chief financial officer, will take innovation. Normally, major capital projects are funded by the legislature one by one. But because of the high cost of biomedical research facilities—$60 million-plus compared with $5 million for typical bonding projects—and the
need to define future infrastructure for prospective faculty, that approach doesn’t work so well in this instance, Pfutzenreuter says.

“To invest in biomedical sciences, we’ve got to hire faculty, but you can’t really begin to recruit and hire those people if you don’t have a building for them to move into. It’s kind of a Catch-22—you wait because you’re not sure if you have a building, and then you’re always behind, he says. “In considering our aspiration to be one of the top three public research universities, the question I wrestled with is, Is that going to take 25 or 30 years because of process at the Capitol? How can we think differently?”

‘Come to Minnesota’

Pfutzenreuter’s answer, presented by the University last year to the Minnesota legislature, was a request to create a Minnesota Biomedical Sciences Research Facilities Authority. This nine-member state authority would have been authorized to allocate $330 million in state bonding toward building five new biomedical research facilities over the next 10 years, each holding 40 faculty members and their laboratory staff.

“[This] provides us with the ability to go to important faculty around the country and say, ‘Come to Minnesota. Look, we have this facility,’” Pfutzenreuter says.

The proposal received strong support, says Marty McDonough, assistant director of state relations for the University, but failed to survive the intense days at the end of the legislative session. Undaunted, the University plans to bring the proposal back to the legislature next year. The 2007 proposal asks for $279 million in state bonding for four buildings, recognizing the first building as a down payment on the facilities investment. The University would then seek another $31 million in private donations to cover the total cost of construction.

If it passes muster, Powell says, the proposal could make a huge difference in the University’s ability to recruit the researchers it needs to reach its top-three goal.

With groundbreaking for the new building slated for early 2007, Powell is focused on the future: “If we get the other four there, we will have a true research complex, which will be wonderful for scientific interactions.”

By Mary Hoff

Other States’ Investments

Recognizing the value of a strong biomedical research industry—for everything from reputation to health care quality to economic vitality—other states are also kicking into high gear, making massive investments in infrastructure to create environments that can attract and retain top researchers.

Arizona, for instance, authorized debt to fund $440 million in new research facilities. Wisconsin’s governor committed $570 million to biomedical research facilities. California has committed to providing $3 billion toward stem cell research. The University of Texas very recently announced a $2.5 billion investment in science, technology, engineering, and health, most of which is dedicated to capital improvements.

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Discovery provides new way to see brain cells in action

2006-04-01T17:18:00Z

Minnesota researchers have discovered a novel way to assess the dynamic interactions of brain networks acting in synchrony on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis.

All behavior and cognition in the brain involves networks of nerves continuously interacting. Because these interactions in the brain happen at lightning speed, it has been difficult to accurately assess them. Current methods, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), take seconds to detect such activity — way too slow.

But Apostolos Georgopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., and two research colleagues used magnetoencepha-lography (MEG) to record tiny magnetic fields from the brain during a short period of time. They studied this interaction in subjects who looked at a spot of light. Georgopoulos used MEG data from 248 sensors to detect the changing interactions over time. These measurements represent the workings of tens of thousands of brain cells.

“This discovery will allow researchers to better evaluate the brain functions of people with various diseases such as Alzheimer’s,” says Georgopoulos, “and to monitor the effect of treatment by assessing the status of the brain networks over time.”

Georgopoulos is a Regents professor and professor of neuroscience, neurology, and psychiatry. He’s also a member of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

This latest discovery was published in the January 10 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Advancing research

2006-01-01T18:11:32Z

Regis Foundation’s support helps take breakthroughs from lab to patients

Anita Kunin knows the importance of finding the best ways to diagnose and treat breast cancer. She’s a 15-year breast cancer survivor — and she’s not alone. “I’m starting to feel like everyone I know is a survivor,” she says.

Kunin is also the founder and driving force behind the Regis Foundation for Breast Cancer Research, an organization affiliated with Regis Corporation, the Edina-based chain of hair salons founded by her husband, Myron Kunin. Today Regis has more than 11,000 salons throughout North America and Europe under the brand names MasterCuts, Trade Secret, Supercuts, SmartStyle, Cost Cutters, and Regis Salons.

Since 1990, Regis stylists have been donating their time and proceeds from haircuts on a specific day in October — Breast Cancer Awareness Month — to the company’s foundation.

Under Kunin’s guidance, the Regis Foundation for Breast Cancer Research has given nearly $1 million to breast cancer efforts at the Cancer Center over the past five years. Last year, the foundation increased its annual gift to $300,000 to fund three innovative projects.

“The University of Minnesota has a grand reputation, and since the Regis corporate headquarters are here, it’s a prime place to focus our dollars,” Kunin says.

Funding from the Regis Foundation has supported several projects to help researchers turn their findings into novel treatments for patients, says Doug Yee, M.D., director of the Cancer Center’s Breast Cancer Research Program and holder of the Tickle Family Land-Grant Chair in Breast Cancer Research.

The foundation has been especially generous in giving to pilot research projects, Yee says. Through pilot projects, researchers can test new ideas; if preliminary findings show that an idea is worth further investigation, researchers can compete for larger grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Not all projects go as expected, Yee cautions. But so far the pilot projects within the Breast Cancer Research Program have done well. “Fortunately, most have been translated into larger funding from the NIH,” he says.

The Regis Foundation also supports magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) research at the Cancer Center to help find the best diagnostic tests and treatment regimens for women with advanced breast cancer.

Yee says it’s often difficult to find funding for the infrastructure needed to conduct research, but the Regis Foundation supports that area, too. Juliette Gay, R.N., is now part of the research team as a nurse manager with support from the foundation’s gifts. “She knows as much about breast cancer as anybody,” Yee says.
Gay currently helps enroll eligible women in clinical trials, a major part of translational research that brings breakthroughs in the lab another step closer to becoming treatment breakthroughs for patients worldwide.

“Regis has been really generous in supporting what we need to make our program a more innovative place for breast cancer care and research,” Yee says.

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Ugurbil inducted into prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences

2006-01-01T17:30:27Z

Since 1780 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has been honoring the world’s leading scientists, scholars, artists, business executives, and public leaders. And this fall, a University of Minnesota Medical School scientist has joined this exclusive and prestigious group.

Kamil Ugurbil, Ph.D., director of the University’s Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, was inducted into the 225th Class of Fellows in October along with 195 other new fellows and 17 new foreign honorary members. Other 2005 awardees include the late Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, TV newsman Tom Brokaw, actor Sidney Poitier, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eric Cornell, and Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Ugurbil, who holds the McKnight Presidential Chair in Radiology, is one of 28 University of Minnesota faculty members invited to join the academy over the years. Anne Pusey, director of the University’s Jane Goodall Center for Primate Research, was also inducted in 2005.

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Magnetic Imaging | Minnesota Medical Foundation

Beyond echo and angiograms

Advanced heart imaging at the U allows for more accurate diagnosis

A dramatic difference

A better picture of cancer

Researchers and clinicians join forces to bring new imaging capabilities to cancer diagnosis and treatment

Detecting breast cancer earlier

Guiding prostate cancer biopsies

Improving the patient experience

The next frontier

U’s Center for Magnetic Resonance Research to play a leading role in $30 million project to map connections in the human brain

A robust collection

Early progress

Learn more

Human Connectome Project By the Numbers

$30 million

9

33

1,200

Researchers develop technique to boost MRI imaging speed

Center for Magnetic Resonance Research expansion opens

U collaborates on $26M study on risks for Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline

Researchers hone in on markers for AOA2

Picturing success: Imaging and engineering offer intriguing new ideas for improving islet cell transplants

A powerful force

The Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, soon to house the world’s strongest magnet, is pushing the technology’s limits

A paradigm shift

Higher and higher

Focused on the brain

An unprecedented resource

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Companion story: A new tool for evaluating breast tumors

About the 9.4T magnet

About the images in this story

Brain and breast images:

Slideshow images:

A new tool for evaluating breast tumors

Sugar on the brain

U imaging pioneer joins Institute of Medicine

CMRR researcher receives Gold Medal Award

Keeping radiology at the forefront

Grateful for past ties to the radiology department, couple helps secure its future

U receives $7.9M NIH grant to expand neuroscience imaging research

$1.5 million to research stem cell treatments for heart disease

Building momentum

Brick by brick, the U is moving toward its goal of becoming one of the top three public research universities in the world

Growing room

A research leap

Know-how

Need for infrastructure

Need for innovation

‘Come to Minnesota’

Related links

Other States’ Investments

Discovery provides new way to see brain cells in action

Advancing research

Regis Foundation’s support helps take breakthroughs from lab to patients

Ugurbil inducted into prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences