February 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).
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
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
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.
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.
January 2023
Welcome to the lab, Zohreh!
Zohreh Erfani joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. She will study metabolism associated with neurological disorders.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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
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".
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".
January 2017
Welcome to the lab, Edward!
Edward Hackett joined the lab. Welcome!