Imaging is a key component in modern medical diagnosis. To improve pathology detection ability, intravenous injections of contrast media is often performed. Such materials change a specific physical property of the tissue into which they spread, resulting in improved image contrast and more reliable diagnosis. The recent developments in the field of nanotechnology have created vast opportunities for improved medical care, including better diagnosis and treatment as well. The extremely small size of the nanoparticles (NPs), their high surface area to volume ratio, and their unique physical properties can, in some cases, augment the sensitivity of the imaging modalities as well as provide targeted tumor visualization and therapeutic benefits. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound (US) are two prominent medical imaging modalities. They are relatively safe and extensively used in various medical fields, such as cardiology, embryology, neurology, and oncology. In this talk, the utilization of NPs in these two modalities will be described, with an up-to-date review of relevant research. Next, nano-scaled compounds allowing multimodal MRI-US will be discussed, and future perspectives will be given. Finally, the ability to use NPs for boosting therapeutic treatments based on focused US and real-time MRI/US monitoring will be presented.

Or Perlman is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He received his BSc (Cum Laude) and MSc (Cum Laude) in Biomedical Engineering from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, and the PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. His research interests include multimodal methods for imaging and detection of nanoparticles, machine learning, and molecular MRI.