News

June 2024

NIH/NHLBI R01 Award

Dr. Park (Contact PI) and Dr. Pradeep Mammen (MPI) received an R01 research grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The title of the proposed study is "Development of early metabolic imaging biomarkers for muscular dystrophy and cardiomyopathy in patients".
Grant#: R01HL170039 ($3.0M)
Period: 2024-2028

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June 2024

T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship

Mai Huynh received a Postdoctoral T32 Research Fellowship from NIH. The fellowship will be up to two years, starting this June. Congratulations!

June 2024

Welcome to the lab, Alfredo!

Alfredo Velazquez Vazquez is joining the lab as an Research Assistant during the summer. He is an undergraduate student, majoring in Bioengineering at University of Pennsylvania.

May 2024

ISMRM 2024

All seven scientific abstracts that we submitted to the 2024 annual meeting of ISMRM in Singapore are accepted for power pitches (2) and digital posters (5). Mai, Hank, and JaeMo attended the conference to present these.

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January 2024

Welcome to the lab, Sasanka!

Sasanka Wathukara Dewage joins our lab as a Ph.D. student of the Biomedical Engineering Program (BMI track) at UT Southwestern. He did his rotation in our lab during the fall 2023.

September 2023

NIH/NCI R15 Award (PI: Billingsley)

Our external collaborator, Dr. Kelvin Billingsley (PI) at Loyola University Chicago, received a research grant from the National Cancer Institute. The title of the proposed study is "Hyperpolarized 13C metabolic imaging of tumorigenesis in the liver".
Grant#: R15CA277814 ($460k), subcontract to our lab ($140k)
Period: 2023-2026

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September 2023

Welcome to the lab, Baljeet!

Baljeet Seniwal joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. He will develop novel pulse sequences for metabolic imaging and image analytical methods.

August 2023

NIH/NIBIB R21 Award (PI: Kovacs)

Our internal collaborator, Dr. Zoltan Kovacs (PI), received a research grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. The title of the proposed study is "Hyperpolarized 13C probes for the one carbon metabolism".
Grant#: R21EB034413 ($450k)
Period: 2023-2025

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June 2023

Neurotrauma 2023

A poster was presented at the 40th annual symposium of the national neurotrauma society, which was held in Austin, Texas.
Picture: Zohreh (left), Brenda Bartnik-Olson (middle), and JaeMo

June 2023

ISMRM 2023

Four scientific abstracts, including a power pitch, were accepted and presented at the 2023 annual meeting of ISMRM, which was held in Toronto Canada.

SpinAligner

May 2023

New preclinical systems - a SpinAligner & Bruker scanners

A new DNP polarizer (SpinAligner) that operates at 6.7T was installed near the new Bruker systems (3T, 7T, and 9.4T).
From left to right: David Guarin (Polarize, MGH), Zohreh, Hank, Rick.

Zohreh Erfani Portrait

January 2023

Welcome to the lab, Zohreh!

Zohreh Erfani joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. She will study metabolism associated with neurological disorders.

Kelley Derner Portrait

December 2022

Welcome to the lab, Kelley!

Kelley Derner joined the lab from the AIRC human core team. As the dedicated research coordinator and nurse of the lab, she will be a key person of all the human studies and the primary contact person for patient recruitments.

September 2022

Welcome to the lab, Yeison!

Yeison Rodriguez is a new graduate student of the Biomedical Engineering Program at UT Southwestern. He will do his first rotation in our lab during the next six weeks.

September 2022

MDA Idea Award

Dr. Park (PI) received a research grant (Idea Award) from the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The title of the proposed study is "Metabolic imaging of muscular dystrophy and cardiomyopathy". This project is in collaboration with Dr. Pradeep Mammen, MD from Internal Medicine (Cardiology Division) of UTSW.
Grant#: MDA963281 ($50k)
Period: 2022-2023

Sarah-Al-Nemri portrait

August 2022

Welcome to the lab, Sarah!

Sarah Al Nemri joined the lab as a research assistant. Before joining the lab, she studied Chemistry and Biology at the University of North Texas.

Enya-Angel Hachem portrait

July 2022

Welcome to the lab, Enya!

Enya is an undergraduate student of Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas. She will develop parallel imaging techniques in combination with novel MR pulse sequences.

June 2022

DOD IIRA Award

Dr. Park (Initiating PI) and Dr. Shawn Burgess (Partnering PI) received a research grant (IIRA) from the Department of Defense. The title of the proposed study is "Development of non-invasive imaging probes for assessing altered mitochondrial metabolism of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease".
Grant#: W81XWH2210485 (Park: $2.0M), W81XWH2210490 (Burgess: $1.2M),
Period: 2022-2026

April 2022

ISMRM 2022

Twelve scientific abstracts, including two orals and four power pitches as listed below, were accepted for the 2022 annual meeting of ISMRM, which will be held in London UK.

January 2022

Welcome to the lab, Shiori!

Shiori Harima is a high school student (Frisco high). She will learn isotopomer analysis using stable isotope during her mentored program in Spring 2022.

October 2021

Congratulations to Dr. Ma!

Junjie Ma passed his thesis defense with flying confetti! The thesis title is "Technical development of hyperpolarized [1-13C]pyruvate imaging for clinical translation". Congratulations to Dr. Ma.

Leon Khalyavin portrait

September 2021

Welcome to the lab, Leon!

Leon is a fast-track student of Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas. He will develop an algorithm that restores contaminated MR signals with machine learning approach.

Mai Huynh portrait

August 2021

Welcome to the lab, Mai!

Mai Huynh joined the lab as a postdoctoral research fellow. During her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Dallas, she was trained as a synthetic chemist.

Sung-Hang Lin portrait

July 2021

Welcome to the lab, Hank!

Sung-Han (Hank) Lin joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Before joining UT Southwestern, he studied at Chang Gung University (PhD) and National Taiwan University (BS).

March 2021

ISMRM 2021

Five scientific abstracts were submitted and accepted for the ISMRM 2021 annual meeting. Two of them were accepted as oral presentations. Two abstracts received additional awards. Jun and Junjie received Educational Stipend from ISMRM. Jun also received a postdoctoral travel award from UT Southwestern.

January 2021

Wellstone Award

Jun Chen received a trainee fellowship from the Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Center. The title of the proposed study is "Investigation of skeletal muscle metabolism in muscular dystrophy".

Maheen Zaidi portrait

January 2021

Welcome to the lab, Maheen!

Maheen Zaidi joined the lab as an undergraduate research assistant. She is majoring in Psychology and Neurobiology (minor) at the University of Texas at Dallas.

September 2020

NINDS R01 Grant

Dr. Park (PI) received a research grant (R01) from the National Institute of Health (NINDS). The title of the proposed study is "Pyruvate and acetate metabolism after TBI: implications for cerebral energy metabolism".

Grant#: 1R01NS107409-01A1
Period: 2020-2025 ($2.8M)

August 2020

ISMRM 2020

All the nine scientific abstracts that we submitted were peer-reviewed and accepted for the ISMRM 2020 annual meeting.

August 2019

Metabolic Imaging of TBI Patient

In collaboration with Drs. Christopher Madden, Marco Pinho, and Surendra Barshikar, we successfully imaged metabolic alteration in the brain after an acute traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a patient. The study is funded by the Texais Institute of Brain Injury and Repair (TIBIR) of UT Southwestern Peter O'Donnel Jr. Brain Institute.

This is the first TBI imaging study in human using hyperpolarized pyruvate technique.

June 2019

CoBRA Grant

Dr. Lumata at UT Dallas and Dr. Park received a Collaborative Biomedical Research (CoBRA) grant. The title of the proposed study is "Non-invasive in vivo imaging of extracellular biological milieu of cancer using hyperpolarized 89Y MRI".

May 2019

ISMRM 2019

All the seven scientific abstracts that we submitted were peer-reviewed and accepted for the ISMRM 2019 annual meeting in Montréal, Canada.

April 2019

Welch Foundation Grant

Dr. Park (PI) received a research grant from the Welch Foundation.

The title of the proposed study is "Development of hyperpolarized probes for imaging neurotransmitter synthesis".

June 2018

ISMRM 2018

Five abstracts including the one oral presentation were presented at the ISMRM 2018 annual meeting in Paris, France.

Read About ISMRM 2018
Jun Chen portrait

December 2017

Welcome to the lab, Jun!

Jun Chen joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Dr. Benjamin Tu's lab at UT Southwestern.

August 2017

TIBIR Award

Dr. Park (PI) and Dr. Marco Pinho (co-investigator) received a research grant from the Texas Institute for Brain Injury and Repair (TIBIR).

The title of the proposed study is "In vivo imaging of traumatic brain injury metabolism".

Junjie Ma portrait

July 2017

Welcome to the lab, Junjie!

Junjie Ma joined the lab as a graduate student. He is in the Biomedical Engineering program at UT Southwestern.

March 2017

Mobility Foundation Award

Dr. Park received a research grant from the Mobility Foundation.

The title of the proposed study is "Imaging mitochondrial function in brain of patients with mobility disorders".

Edward Hacket portrait

January 2017

Welcome to the lab, Edward!

Edward Hackett joined the lab. Welcome!