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PHeLINet research activities and achievements |
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The collaborative work performed in PHeLINet is organised in four research activities (RA) as follows:
RA1. Helium3 imaging medical applications
RA1 aims at applying hyperpolarised (HP) Helium3 to human studies, for diagnosis and treatment monitoring of selected lung diseases and disorders, as well as for assistance in end-point observation of novel drug therapy trials.
- Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, Mainz University Medical School, Claude Bernard - Lyon1 University, and the University of Sheffield are involved in COPD clinical studies.
- The University of Sheffield, Mainz University Medical School, Claude Bernard - Lyon1 University, DKFZ Heidelberg, and Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre are involved in cystic fibrosis studies clinical studies.
- The University of Sheffield and U2R2M (Orsay-Bicêtre) are conducting studies on asthmathic patients.
- The University of Sheffield and DKFZ Heidelberg are involved in studies with lung cancer patients.
- U2R2M (Orsay-Bicêtre) is developing MR elastography for in vivo imaging of lung ventilation.
- New imaging protocols and post-processing techniques are being developed and tested by several PHeLINet Partners for improved functional imaging of the lung, using both hyperpolarised helium and proton.
RA2. HP Helium3 pre-clinical studies
The main objectives of RA2 are the development of pre-clinical lung diseases diagnostic techniques and the implementation of new imaging protocols for drug evaluation in animal models using hyperpolarised Helium3.
- Pre-clinical ultrafast imaging protocols are being developed for non-invasive dynamic studies of ventilation at Claude Bernard - Lyon1 University and Universitad Complutense of Madrid
- Imaging of small animal models is performed by Claude Bernard - Lyon1 University, Universitad Complutense of Madrid, and Boehringer Ingelheim. Comparison with functional and morphometric measurements (Fundación Jiménez Díaz, Madrid) allows quantitative evaluation of the performances and sensitivity of the technique for lung disorders induced by, e.g., chronic exposure to cigarette smoke or air pollutants.
RA3. Advanced technological and methodological developments for HP Helium3
The RA3 research program is focused on dedicated instrumental and methodological MRI developments for the extension of new research and routine medical applications using Helium3.
- Academic research groups (U2R2M Orsay-Bicêtre, the University of Sheffield, Mainz University Medical School) are involved in a joint active effort with strong industrial PHeLINet Partners (Siemens, Philips, and Rapid Biomedical) that addresses the methodology of parallel MR imaging for clinical purposes.
- U2R2M Orsay-Bicêtre, the University of Sheffield, and Philips are involved in the development high-field (3T) MRI with hyperpolarized helium and its implementation on clinical scanners.
- U2R2M Orsay-Bicêtre, the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (Paris), Esaote, the Institute of Measurement Science (Bratislava), and the Jagiellonian University (Krakow) are performing low-field (0.1T and 0.25T) and very-low-field (3-6mT) lung MRI studies with hyperpolarized Helium-3 gas.
RA4. HP Helium3 production and gas management
The objectives of the RA4 research program are to provide wide and easy access to HP Helium3, and standardized tools for its optimal management and use for biomedical or diagnostic MRI applications. It aims at promoting the implementation and dissemination of the robust techniques for all the involved processes: polarization and compression of Helium3 gas, storage of hyperpolarized gas, delivery and controlled administration to living human or animal subjects and finally recycling of Helium3.
- The Institute for Physics provides strong support to clinical, pre-clinical and methodological studies by regularly shipping high-grade HP Helium-3 gas from the centralized production facility implemented at Mainz University to the other PHeLINet Partners.
- Glass vessels and magnetic boxes for storage and transport of the HP gas are steadily improved by Institute for Physics of Mainz University to allow gas delivery without significant loss of nuclear polarization to users located outside Europe (US, Austarlia,..).
- The Institute for Physics and Spectra Gases are involved in the project of building a centralized gas recycling facility, with some evaluation tests performed at the University of Sheffield.
- The on-site polarisation system developed by Laboratoire Kastler Brossel is currently used and further improved in Paris, at U2R2M (Orsay-Bicêtre), and at the Jagiellonian University (Krakow). The joint objective is to significantly boost up the performances in gas production and polarisation rates for routine high-resolution imaging in humans.
- The Institute for Physics at Mainz University is finalising the upgrade of its gas administration unit for patients. It allows a fully controlled delivery of polarised bolus for highly quantitative ventilation studies.
- The Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (Paris) and the Jagiellonian University (Krakow) are involved in the study of optical pumping of Helium-3 by metastability exchange (MEOP) at very high magnetic field, that has been recently observed to yield very high nuclear polarisations at elevated gas pressures. This potentially removes the strong technical challenge met in standard conditions (mT fields), namely the compression of HP gas from millibar range to atmospheric pressure with no loss of polarisation, and opens the way to a much wider dissemination of the technique.
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Research 
