General Electric Company (GE) has announced the introduction of SPINlab, a hyperpolarizing system that enables the visualization of metabolic activity at the cellular level using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
GE has introduced the SPINlab at the joint meeting of International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) and the European Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology (ESMRMB).
The system simplifies MRI research of metabolism by providing reliable access to hyperpolarized compounds in a dedicated unit. SPINlab is the inaugural product of Research Circle Technology (RCT), which GE launched in 2011 to enhance development of innovative technology, in collaboration with leading scientists.
The hyperpolarization system that was first used several years ago needed an entire clean room; additionally, it required significant amounts of liquid helium to operate and several operators working in concert.
SPINlab is now the first high-throughput, fully-automated hyperpolarizer requiring minimal helium. It has an integrated fluid path, quality control system and simultaneously hyperpolarizes multiple samples of pyruvate or other compounds to produce imaging agents.
Almost all the major diseases are in some way linked to metabolic alterations. The introduction of SPINlab has expanded new possibilities to study non-invasively the biochemical changes in disease processes by improving the sensitivity of MRI by more than 20,000-fold1.
By using SPINlab, researchers can study the real-time metabolism of disease, moving beyond morphology and functionality to reveal visual information about the flow, perfusion, metabolism and organ and cell viability in living creatures. Because SPINlab enables non-invasive imaging of metabolic pathways, it allows researchers to better study treatment monitoring and earlier disease detection.
University of California – San Francisco’s (UCSF) Surbeck Laboratory for Advanced Imaging completed a 31-patient study performed by scientists at UCSF and their collaborators. These findings appeared online in the August 14, 2013 issue of Science Translational Medicine.
Scientists at Cancer Research UK’s Cambridge Research Institute have developed a technique to show the effectiveness of cancer treatment weeks earlier than current methods through metabolic imaging.
GE Healthcare MRI president and CEO and RCT board of directors member Richard Hausmann noted that RCT is proving to be an effective way to work with researchers.
"We have been collaborating with sites around the world on this cutting-edge technology that enables their metabolic research. We are very excited to see the results coming from their labs and look forward to future developments that will improve our understanding of cellular metabolic activity," Hausmann added.
Through RCT, GE looks to continue providing the tools, services and solutions so researchers can focus on their investigations into the biochemistry of metabolism and accelerate the discovery of potentially life-saving knowledge.