Quest for MRI Contrast Material

Magnetic resonance imaging, one of the most important medical imaging advances in disease detection, relies on the injection of contrast material to highlight specific tissue or to distinguish between healthy and diseased tissue. The materials used in this medical imaging procedure tend to have the drawback of being either simply constructed and managed within the body but offering low contract or more complex in construction, offering sharper medical imaging contrast but with less stability when injected.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has been collaborating with researchers at Florida State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder to create new medical imaging contrast materials that are highly magnetic, highly uniform (and thereby easier to manage) and very small. This combination of attributes will work together to create a very safe, very predictable, highly effective contract solution for use in medical imaging.