Profile

I am professor in medical imaging and the Head of Department of Health Technology. I received my M.Sc. in electrical engineering from Technical University of Denmark, as well as my Ph.D. I became fellow of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in 2017 and fellow of Fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine in 2020.

My research evolves 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 my research group 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 and 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.

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.