I am full professor and head of Section for Magnetic Resonance. I also head Center for Hyperpolarization in Magnetic Resonance, a center of excellence funded by the Danish National Research Foundation.

My research has always evolved around means to improve the sensitivity of Magnetic Resonance (MR) Imaging and Spectroscopy, with the aim of obtaining new, and otherwise inaccessible, information about function and disease at the cellular and molecular levels. These means have typically been unconventional and involved novel chemistry, physics and engineering.

In 2003 we demonstrated a more than 10,000-fold enhancement of the sensitivity of the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance signal by the dissolution Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) method. The invention has enabled Hyperpolarized Metabolic MR in real time. In 2013 we published the first clinical study in patients with prostate cancer using hyperpolarized 13C-pyruvate. For this invention I was awarded the Günther Laukien Prize by ENC in 2012 and the Gold Medal Award by the World Molecular Imaging Society in 2014.

My current research relates to understanding the physics of DNP and improving the method and instrumentation, improving the sensitivity of detection in MRI by new hardware and imaging strategies, as well as the clinical translation of hyperpolarization in medical imaging.

In addition to my research on hyperpolarization I have made significant scientific contributions to two novel magnetic resonance imaging techniques: electron paramagnetic resonance imaging (EPRI) and Overhauser magnetic resonance imaging (OMRI) through the development and characterization of novel organic radicals, development of instrumentation and methodology.