Metabolic magnetic resonance imaging across the human heart (360G-Wellcome-098436_Z_12_B)

During my fellowship, I proved the feasibility of measuring cardiac energetics in volunteers and patients using ultra-high field (7T) MRI scanners. The sensitivity and the separation of signals from different metabolites both improved significantly compared to standard research scanners. I recently secured £340k funding to fit a new phosphorus coil on the Oxford 7T scanner, which I am now testing in volunteers. Theory predicts that this coil will have several complementary technical advantages. These will enable mapping of cardiac energy metabolism across the whole heart, with sufficient spatial resolution to distinguish signals from healthy from diseased tissue. It will also enable quantification of cardiac energy metabolism with high precision to study single subjects rather than groups. I request funding to validate these new whole-heart methods, proving their value in three carefully-targeted groups of patients, via an extension of my fellowship. My goals are (A) to study patients in which the metabolic pattern is known by other means; (B) others where the metabolic pattern will reveal previously-inaccessible aspects of disease mechanism; and (C) to prove I can resolve metabolic changes in single patients. Success in each of these studies will give me the pilot data needed for competitive Senior Fellowship applications.