The University of Maryland, Baltimore currently has 18 NIH funded research projects that could greatly benefit from the availability of a shared high-field animal imaging magnetic resonance system. The projects cover a wide array of high impact, cutting edge biomedical research including topics such as, brain development and disease processes through diffusion tensor imaging, understanding brain metabolism involved in white matter disease, understanding progression of breast and prostate cancer and studying the efficacy of therapeutic agents, the pathogenic mechanisms of human herpesvirus, tumorigenesis, the progression of neurodegenerative events and studying the long and short term consequences of pharmacological treatment, the neuronal mechanisms of pain, cardiac dynamics, metabolic and development aspects of mental retardation, development of drug delivery agents for effective treatment of cancer, and many other such projects that are state-of-the-art and push the envelope of our scientific knowledge. The availability of a shared 7 Tesla animal MRI would allow investigators to probe into basic biological processes, understand the progression of disease, and follow the effects of novel pharmacological interventions through the use of multi-nuclear spectroscopy and imaging. The purchase of a 7.0 Tesla animal imaging system will be an important component to our existing shared resources on campus and will complement the high resolution NMR spectrometers that are used primarily for studying biological structures. This imaging resource will be located in specially designed space, in close proximity to the animal holding area and right next to two animal surgical suites. The Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, and Dentistry, the Greenebaum Research Center, and the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute join together in this shared instrument application. Institutional commitment for supporting the expenses and responsibilities for its operations will also be shared by the different schools and institutes of this campus. The number and quality of biomedical research projects performed at the University of Maryland Baltimore campus has reached a level that will guarantee a continued and pressing need to a high-field animal imaging system.
