The National Center for In Vivo Metabolism has wide ranging facilities that are widely shared with the Advanced Imaging Research Center at UTSouthwestern Medical Center. The Center is equiped with state-of-the art equipment for clinical and small animal MRI systems, but also hyperpolarizers, In Vitro NMR systems and an advanced perfusion suite.
Key Equipment
All of the key equipment is located in NE building in the North Campus at UTSouthwestern. For information on training and availability please contact us through the collaborations form. For more details about the individual pieces of equipemnt follow the links below.
Spinlab
The GE Spinlab together with the GE 3T, 750w scanner are dedicated to technology development for imaging hyperpolarized nuclei. These two instruments build the core equipement for the hyperpolarization clinical research
Hypersense
The Oxford instruments Hypersense is the essential hyperpolarizer for non-clinical work and is heavily used for perfusions, in-vitro work and small animal imaging HP experiments.
Swiss Sense
The Swiss sense is a homebuilt hyperpolarizer that is mainly used for small animal HP imaging experiments due to its proximity to the 4.7T small animal imaging scanner.
Parahydrogen Generator
The Bruker ph2 Generator is used in conjuction with a dedicated NMR system with a 10mm broadband probe allowing a wide range of nuclei in a large volume necessary for the generator.
Rodent Imaging Lab
The 4.7T horizontal bore system is located right next to the SwissSense, allowing 13C and 15N HP studies in mice and rats.
Rodent Imaging Suit
This lab focuses on small animal in vivo imaging, spectroscopy and new coil development. It containts a 7T and a 9.4T horizontal bore magnet for rat and mice studies.
Housing & Procedures
The animal facilities are maintained and managed by the Animal Resource Center (ARC) of UT Southwestern Medical Center. Surgery rooms and Physiological services are available.
Philips 3TA
This instrument has both a 1H, single r.f. transmit channel dedicated to neuroscience imaging including diffusion tensor imaging, arterial spin labeling, anatomical imaging, and fMRI of the brain, as well as an independent multi-nuclear channel capable of 13C, 31P, and 23Na MRI and MRS. The system is fully equipped for a multitude of fMRI stimuli presentations, has a dedicated area for fMRI training, and has a power injector for contrast studies.
Philips 3TB
This instrument has dual channel transmit and a 32 channel head coil. It is optimized for neuroimaging.
Philips 7T
This whole-body human 7T scanner is equipped for 1H, 13C, 23Na and 31P MR spectroscopy including the necessary amplifiers, preamplifiers and software. A two channel parallel transmit and a 32-channel head coil are available. Software for broadband 1H decoupling for both 13C and 31P human studies has been installed.
Nursing and Patient Support
The Center of In Vivo Metabolism has a team of nurses lead by Jeannie Baxter, that are dedicated to working with research personnel and patients. Private medical examination rooms and mock scanners are part of the patient support facilities.
Synthetic Chemistry Laboratory
All general chemistry support equipment and compounds are available. The lab is managed by a full time lab manager who oversees proper laboratory procedures, equipment maintenance and supply orders
Biochemistry Lab
This lab is primarily used for performing standard biochemical assays and making solutions used in tissue/organ perfusions. The lab contains a vented hood and is equipped with balances, centrifuges, a freeze dryer, an HPLC instrument, pH meters, a diode array spectrophotometer (Hewlett Packard), tissue homogenizer, a fluorometer, and other equipment necessary for standard biochemical assays. The lab also contains a wide range of chemicals for general use as well as numerous refrigerator / freezer units used to store samples and house temperature dependent compounds as needed.
Walk-In NMR Lab
This room is designed to provide "walk-up" NMR spectrometers for the synthetic chemists on the 4th floor.
Cell and Tissue Culture Lab
This room was designed specifically for cell culture and has access limits among the staff to maintain a clean environment.
The 600 Suite
The 600 suite contains three Varian 600MHz NMR specrometers, all focusing on running high-resolution 13C tissue extracts for metabolism studies
Coldhead 600
The Coldprobe 600 is mainly used for 13C tissue extracts and running 13C perfusion studies using a dual-tune coil with 13C and 23Na.
Walkup 400
The Walkup 400 is dedicated to the synthetic chemistry laboratory with short wait times for a quick analysis of products.
Tissue Perfusions
This lab contains a vented hood, chemical storage facilities, blood gas analyzers, extra inventory for lab materials, and several perfusion rigs. Multiple organ perfusion setups are located throughout the BTRC and are available for perfusing livers, kidneys, tumors, and hearts, Langendorff or working. Incidentally, a number of the magnet systems have a perfusion apparatus that fits within the bore of the magnet to add collections of sequential metabolic information during a study.
NMR & MRI
The perfusion room overlaps with the Coldprobe 600 and the 400MHz vertical bore microimaging NMR allowing of running live spectroscopy and imaging experiments of perfusions.
Tissue Processing Support
This room is designated to HPLC systems operation and tissue processing: One HPLC system including: Waters OTof MS Xevo Mass Spectrometer. One Waters 2998 Photodiode Array detector and a Waters e2695 Separations monitor. One HPLC system including: Waters 2487 Dual Absorbance detector and a 1525 Binary HPLC pump. One flammable compound storage cabinet.
NMR & MRI Workstations
Workstations are available to analyze spectroscopy and imaging data for the small animal suite and the chemistry labs.
Software Development
tcaCALC and tcaSIM are actively being developed by in-house staff and tutorials and training is available.