My early interests in MRI were based on diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) and contrast enhanced (CE) in breast lesion diagnosis and characterization. Currently, I am working on development of sodium (23Na) MR imaging applicable in biochemical investigations of breast tumors. The development of this novel technique is connected with ultra-high field systems (e.g. >3 Tesla) because of low sodium concentrations in tissues (the in vivo sodium signal is ~22000 times smaller than that of conventional proton MRI). This includes tissue sodium quantification (TSC) related techniques and more specifically techniques that allow separation intra-(ISC) and extra-(ESC) sodium concentrations. This can provide additional and more specific information about tissue state and cellular integrity, important biomarkers for breast neoplasms.
Additionally, I am interested in a novel MRI technique called chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST), that enables indirect detection of intracellular compounds (i.e., functional metabolites, proteins) using the exchange process with water pool protons. Numerous technical challenges (external and local field inhomogeneity corrections, motion correction, effect quantification, etc.) and make this molecular imaging technique especially interesting for research and clinical applications.