Benjamin Dottinger with Dr. Srinivas Sridhar (NU)
The Sridhar lab is developing and testing a new MRI technique in human study in which Ferumoxytol is used as a contrasting agent. Ferumoxytol is an iron replacement injection that is commonly used to treat anaemia. The tiny particles, in addition to helping replace the iron in your blood, exhibit paramagnetic properties as it flows through your vessels for a short time. Because of this, ferumoxytol is being investigated as a new contrasting agent for its ability to produce high positive contrast MRI images with robust views of vasculature. The project will involve looking at pre- and post-contrast MRI image of the kidneys in human subjects, isolating the kidneys from the scans and producing a 3d rendering, segmenting and annotating the kidney vasculature, and comparing the resolution and contrast intensity of the ferumoxytol-aided scans with other common MRI scanning techniques, including (but not limited to) diffusion weighted imaging, T1-weighted imaging, T2-weighted imaging, Dixon-type sequences, and others.
