PhD student Saket Patel at HYPERMAG for research secondment

Saket Patel is a third year PhD student at Aix-Marseille Université, involved in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network EUROPOL. 16 early stage researchers collaborate across the EUROPOL framework, enjoying a special customized training program provided by the EUROPOL partners. All spend time on research secondments at one or more partner organizations, in order to experience different research environments, cultures and fields of expertise. 

Saket joined HYPERMAG in March. He has worked hard, making the most of our facilities and collaborating with our team. The planned series of experiments are all in the bag, and soon he will return to Marseille to finish his thesis, which he expects to hand in by the end of this year. 

Saket's research project is focused on polarizing agents for Dissolution Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP). His overall aim is to develop new polarizing agents for biophysical, metabolomic, pre-clinical and clinical research. He works on design, synthesis and characterization of polarizing agents to be used to increase the magnetic resonance response of an array of target biological substrates such as pyruvate, glucose, acetate, and lactate. 

During his three-month secondment, Saket has been testing the DNP efficiency of several polarizing agents developed during his PhD project. His aim for the stay at HYPERMAG has been to establish optimal polarization conditions, coupled with optimized paramagnetic parameters, in order to produce the largest response possible, as well as optimizing polarizing strategies in order to produce the best in vitro images possible.

Saket has used our EPR lab facilities to study the specific magnetic properties of the synthesized polarizing agents in order to get optimized agents with low toxicity for achieving better enhancement results for diagnostic applications.

Saket's main Supervisor is Professor Olivier Ouari from Institut de Chimie Radicalaire.