Israel

Tel Aviv University

Tel Aviv University (TAU) - Israel's largest and most comprehensive institution of higher learning - is home to over 30,000 students studying in nine faculties, 125 schools and departments across the spectrum of sciences, humanities and the arts. The magnetic resonance infrastructure at TAU contains a range of high resolution spectrometers featuring magnetic fields of 8.4T, 9.4T, 11.7T and14.0T, where the 8.4T spectrometer is wide bore equipped with microimaging accessory; a 7T BIOSPEC 30 cm bore size MRI scanner suitable for mice and rats imaging and a 3T Siemens PRISMA scanner. All this equipment will be accessible for the use in the present proposal. The handling of the animals including the implantation of tumours will be done at the TAU animal facility that follows all the standards, rules and regulations for safe and humane animal care. The team that takes part in the GLINT project has already shown its credibility and its relevancy to the project by finding for the first time that 3OMG is a valid candidate for tumour imaging by CEST.

Key Staff

Prof. Gil Navon is a Professor Emeritus at the School of Chemistry Tel Aviv University. He has been in the field of biomedical NMR and MRI from its inception. During this period he has done numerous innovations ranging from the first 31P NMR of live cancer and bacterial cells, finding ways by using 23Na NMR of improved preservation of ischemic hearts, inventing SPINOE, opened the field of multiple quantum filtered (MQF) NMR and MRI for the investigation of connective tissues such as cartilage and tendons and of nerves and used the CEST method for the study of joints and intervertebral discs (gagCEST) and for the detection of cancerous tumours. Within GLINT, Prof. Navon will perform the pre-clinical work on glucose analogues, continuing the work on the 2-OMG that was originally developed in his laboratory. He will perform pharmacokinetic analysis by 13C NMR, and will search for other glucose analogues