Bulletin of the American Physical Society
Joint Fall 2017 Meeting of the Texas Section of the APS, Texas Section of the AAPT, and Zone 13 of the Society of Physics Students
Volume 62, Number 16
Friday–Saturday, October 20–21, 2017; The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas
Session H1: Plenary Session II |
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Chair: Michael Kesden, University of Texas at Dallas Room: DGAC 1.102 |
Saturday, October 21, 2017 8:30AM - 9:15AM |
H1.00001: The Physics \& Chemistry of Molecular Imaging Invited Speaker: Dean Sherry MRI contrast agents have become an important diagnostic tool in clinical medicine. The most popular and widely-used agents over the past 30 years have been small chelates of Gd3$+$ that act as T1 shortening agents after IV administration. These small molecule agents in general lack tissue specificity, quickly enter all extracellular space, and do not respond to changes in physiology or biology. A goal of our lab over the past few years has been to develop newer types of agents for measuring important physiological parameters such as tissue pH, hypoxia or enzyme activity. The recent discovery of a Zn2$+$-responsive Gd-complex has allowed monitoring of insulin secretion from pancreatic beta-cells and Zn2$+$ secretion from prostate, both in response to glucose. A second new imaging contrast mechanism based on chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) is rapidly gaining popularity for detecting in vivo proton exchange processes. Many endogenous proteins and small metabolite molecules have been detected and several new exogenous paramagnetic agents (paraCEST) have been designed that ``respond'' to specific biological events. Finally, one of the newest areas of molecular imaging applied to biology and medicine is dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP), a process by which electron spin polarization is transferred to nuclear spins at low temperature. This process increases the sensitivity of 13C, 15N and other insensitive NMR nuclei by a factor of 10,000 or more thereby offering the exciting possibility of imaging metabolic pathways in real time in humans. Basic physics and chemistry principles have been used to improve the sensitivity of DNP to the point where clinical applications of DNP are rapidly becoming a reality. Examples of the first human metabolic imaging experiments performed in Dallas will be presented. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 21, 2017 9:15AM - 10:00AM |
H1.00002: Mars 2020 Mission Overview and the Importance of Planetary Protection Invited Speaker: Dr. Moogega Stricker The M2020 Mission is designed to investigate key question related to the habitability of Mars and will conduct assessments that will help plan for future human exploration of Mars. Per its Program Level Requirements, the project will also acquire and cache samples of rock, regolith, and procedural “blank” samples for possible return to Earth by a future mission. The Planetary Protection Categorization letter assigned the M2020 Mission as a Category V Restricted Earth Return due to the possible future return of collected samples. As indicated in NPR8020.12D, Section 5.3.3.2, as the first leg of potential sample return, Mars 2020 would be expected to meet the requirements of a Category IVb mission. The entire flight system is subject to microbial reduction requirements, with additional specific emphasis on the sample acquisition and caching. Mars 2020 has a very unique biological contamination plan to both protect Mars as well as the scientific integrity of the collected sample. A mission overview and Planetary Protection activities will be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
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