Research Areas | The Institute of Medical Sciences

Research Areas

Cardiac Imaging

Cardiology and Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging Research is led by Professor Dana Dawson.

Using state of the art cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and 31P spectroscopy they group has been at the forefront of the international endeavour in better understanding a newly recognised heart attack condition called takotsubo cardiomyopathy or “broken heart syndrome”: the Aberdeen group have shown that a proportion of patients with Takotsubo remain with long-lasting health issues after the attack and that the condition has an inflammatory substrate that continues to grumble for a while.

Aberdeen Cardiovascular & Diabetes Centre

Cancer Imaging

The Cancer Imaging Group (CIG) is a multi-disciplinary group involving physicists, oncologists, surgeons, radiologists and histologists.

We have developed a suite of advanced and novel magnetic resonance (MR) methods for revealing pathophysiological processes in breast cancer. We have demonstrated that lactate concentration, a marker of aerobic glycolysis (AG), can be quantified using double quantum filtered (DQF) MR spectroscopy as a potential early response marker for treatment. We have illustrated that cellularity, an established histological marker for treatment efficacy, can be non-invasively quantified using q-space imaging (QSI). We have further shown that lipid composition may provide crucial information for early diagnosis, phenotype identification and treatment monitoring using a combination of DQF MR spectroscopy, DQF correlation spectroscopy (COSY) and advanced Dixon method.

Dr Jiabao He

FFC-MRI

FFC imaging makes a step change in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology by breaking one of its fundamental "laws" - that the applied magnetic field must be held constant during image acquisition. By deliberately switching the magnetic field during the collection of MR images, we are able to gain access to radically new types of endogenous contrast. We are exploring applications in medicine using our unique whole-body FFC imager, with exciting results in stroke, cancer, osteoarthritis and other pathologies.

Fast Field-Cycling MRI