News update:

• Nov. 26, 2008 - Last Friday the Lab had a holiday party to celebrate Sunny and Sean receiving their PhDs.  Please take a look at some photos.

• Nov. 14, 2008 - There were total of 17 abstracts submitted for the ISMRM 17th Scientific Meeting which will be held next year in Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA.

• Nov. 10, 2008 - Congratulations to Dr. Devkumar Mustafi received a Pilot & Feasibility grant entitled, “In Vivo Detection of Colitis and Colitis-associated Early Colorectal Tumors in Mice Using Contrast-enhanced MRI”, from the Digestive Diseases Research Core Center (DDRCC) for the project period of 12/1/08-11/30/09.

• Oct. 29, 2008 - Today Sean successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation.  He is now officially Dr. Edward Sean Foxley.  We wish him great success in his future scientific career.

• Oct. 29, 2008 - Congratulations to Dr. Xiaobing Fan for been promoted to the rank of Research Associate (Associate Professor).

• Oct. 20, 2008 - We would like to welcome Mr. Jim Vosicky, our new veterinary technician, to the core facility.  He has over 25 years experience working with laboratory animals within this university, and will be an instrumental asset to our facility.

• Sept. 24, 2008 - Congratulation to Dr. Gregory Karczmar for becoming co-leader of the Advanced Imaging Program in the University of Chicago Cancer Research Center.

• Sept. 24, 2008 - We are pleased to congratulate Ms. Elizabeth Hipp on passing her Ph.D. qualifying exam this afternoon.  She will be working towards her Ph.D. under the guidance of Prof. Karczmar.  Welcome to the lab!

• Sept. 15, 2008 - Congratulation to Mr. Sean Foxley for receiving the RSNA Trainee Research Prize $1,000.

• Sept. 11, 2008 - Congratulation to Dr. Sanaz Jansen and her colleagues for their paper published in Physics in Medicine and Biology:
  Jansen SA, Conzen SD, Fan X, Krausz T, Zamora M, Foxley S, River J, Newstead GM, Karczmar GS.  Detection of in situ mammary cancer in a transgenic mouse model: in vitro and in vivo MRI studies demonstrate histopathologic correlation.  Phys Med Biol. 2008; 53:5481-5493.

• Sept. 2, 2008 - Congratulation to Mr. Sean Foxley and his colleagues for their paper published in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine:
  Foxley S, Fan X, Jansen SA, Zamora M, Markiewicz E, Al-Ahmadie H, Karczmar GS.  High spectral and spatial resolution MRI of age-related changes in murine prostate.  Magn Reson Med. 2000; 60:575-581.

• Aug. 18, 2008 - Today Sunny successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation.  She is now officially Dr. Sanaz A. Jansen.  We wish her great success in her future scientific career.

• Aug. 14, 2008 - Congratulation to Sunny and her colleagues for their paper published in Medical Physics:
  Jansen SA, Fan X, Karczmar GS, Abe H, Schmidt RA, Giger M, Newstead GM.  DCEMRI of breast lesions: is kinetic analysis equally effective for both mass and nonmass-like enhancement? Med Phys. 2008; 35:3102-9.

• Aug. 7, 2008 -  We would like to welcome Mr. Doug Diak to work at Dr. Roman's Molecular and Physiological Imaging Laboratory.  He will be involved in the laboratory's diabetes research and molecular imaging of the heart.

• Aug. 6, 2008 - Congratulation to Mr. Sean Foxley and his colleagues for their paper published in Physics in Medicine and Biology:
  Foxley S, Fan X, Mustafi D, Yang C, Zamora MA, Medved M, Karczmar GS.  Quantitative analysis of water proton spectral lineshape: a novel source of contrast in MRI.  Phys Med Biol. 2008; 53:4509-4522.

• July 18, 2008 - Congratulation to the following people for their RSNA abstracts accepted for presentations:
  (1) S Foxley, X Fan, D Mustafi, C Haney, M A Zamora, E Markiewicz, G S Karczmar: Detection of Tumor Microvasculature Using High Spectral and Spatial Resolution MR Imaging without the Use of Contrast Agents.
  (2) C R Haney, A D Parasca, R Bell, M Zamora, X Fan, G S Karczmar, H J Mauceri, R R Weichselbaum, H J Halpern, C A Pelizzari: Assessment of Radiation Mediated Gene Therapy via Multi-Modality Imaging.
  (3) S A Jansen, T Paunesku, G E Woloschak, S Vogt, S Conzen, E Markiewicz, G M Newstead, G S Karczmar: Why Does Ductal Carcinoma in Situ Enhance on Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MR Imaging of the Breast?
  (4) D Mustafi, J River, S Foxley, S A Jansen, G Newstead, G Karczmar: In Vitro MRI Identification and Characterization of Small Calcium Crystals for Probing Micro-calcifications in Breast Cancer.
  (5) S F Othman, E J Markiewicz, M Zuckerman, S Waters, B B Roman: Manganese Enhanced MRI to Assess Cardiac Calcium Handling in Control and Creatine Kinase Deficient Mice.
  (6) E Peng, G S Karczmar, D Mustafi:  Binding Studies of Albumin with Vanadyl Chelates: "A New Class of Diagnostic MRI Probe for Cancer".

• June 27, 2008 - Congratulation to Dr. Roman for receiving funding in the amount of $20K from The Louis Block Fund 2007.

• June 17, 2008 - Congratulation to Dr. Mustafi for receiving a grant from the American Cancer Society - Illinois Division: “New Vanadium-based Molecular Imaging Probe for Early Detection of Cancer".  The grant will start July/August of 2008.

• June 12, 2008 - Mr. Matthew Zuckerman will be leaving us to attend medical school at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.  His last day of work is July 11th.  We wish him good luck in his studies and best wishes for his future.

• April 15, 2008 - Dr. Othman is going to leave us at the end of this month and taking a faculty position (Assistant Professor) in Department of Radiology at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.  We will miss him and wish him good luck in his research career.

• April 9, 2008 - Congratulation to Dr. Haney and his colleagues for their paper published in Concepts in Magnetic Resonance Part B: Magnetic Resonance Engineering:
  Haney CR, Fan X, Parasca AD, Karczmar GS, Halpern HJ, Pelizzari CA.  Immobilization using dental material casts facilitates accurate serial and multimodality small animal imaging. Concepts Magn Reson Part B 2008; 33B:138-144.

• April 3, 2008 - Congratulation to Sunny and her colleagues for their paper published in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine:
  Jansen SA, Fan X, Karczmar GS, Abe H, Schmidt RA, Newstead GM. Differentiation between benign and malignant breast lesions detected by bilateral dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI: A sensitivity and specificity study. Magn Reson Med. 2008; 59:747-754.

• Feb 29, 2008 - Mr. Suraj Serai has submitted his PhD thesis and will obtain his PhD officially in May 2008.  He will leave us in March to join his wife in Los Angeles.  He promises to return frequently to finalize his exciting islet research.  We will miss him and wish him a good luck for his future.

• Feb. 5, 2008 - Under the leadership of Drs. Karczmar and Roman, we have a total of eleven Abstracts that have been selected for presentation at the scientific sessions of the ISMRM 2008 Annual Meeting in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  Out of the eleven Abstracts, one each from Chad, Sunny and Suraj (CONGRATULATIONS!), have been accepted as oral presentations:
  (1) Chad Haney, et al. “Assessment of Radiation Mediated Gene Therapy via Multi-Modality Imaging”
  (2) Sanaz (Sunny) A. Jansen, et al. “Why do Ductal Carcinoma in situ Lesions Enhance on Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MRI of the Breast? Using X-Ray Fluorescence and MRI to Track the Spatial Distribution of Gd-DTPA in Murine DCIS”
  (3) Suraj Serai, et al. “MRI Studies of In-vitro Perfused Human Pancreatic Islet Cell Activation”

• Feb. 1, 2008 - Congratulation to Erica for achieving the Department of Radiology Superior Research Support Award for 2007.

• Dec. 14, 2007 - Congratulation to Mr. Suraj Serai passed his PhD dissertation defense today.

• Dec. 12, 2007 - Last Friday the Lab had holiday party.  Please take a look at some photos.

• Nov. 30, 2007 - Congratulation to Mr. Muhammad E. Haque on successfully defending his PhD dissertation yesterday.  He is Dr. Haque now.

• Nov. 27, 2007 - Congratulation to Sunny for her publication in Radiology. 2007; 245:684-91.

• Nov. 13, 2007 - Congratulation to Dr. Othman won this years Hodges Award.

• Nov. 8, 2007 - Today we had another successful PhD dissertation proposal hearing from Mr. Sean Foxley.

• Nov. 8, 2007 - There were total of 18 abstracts submitted for the ISMRM 16th Scientific Meeting which will be held in 2008 at Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

• Nov. 6, 2007 - Yesterday Sanaz (Sunny) defended her PhD dissertation proposal successfully.

• Nov. 2, 2007 - On Nov 1, 2007 Mr. Muhammad E. Haque passed his preliminary defense for the Ph.D.  His committee agrees that he passed with flying colors.  His final defense will be at Nov 29, 2007.

• Oct. 30, 2007 - Congratulation to Dr. Yang for his publication in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (2007).

• Oct. 17, 2007 - At the medical physics welcome reception for students today, Sunny was awarded with the 2007 Carl J. Vyborny Award for Outstanding Journal Club Presentation!  This of course fits well with her winning a 2007 RSNA trainee award (two years running)!

• Oct. 11, 2007 - Marta and Erica will be attending the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science (AALAS) National Meeting in Charlotte, NC during the week of Oct. 15th.

• Sept. 28, 2007 - We will be officially opened for all investigators on Oct 8th, 2007.

• Sept. 25, 2007 - Congratulation to Dr. Mustafi for receiving pilot funding $10K with Dr. Bissonnette from Cancer Center Imaging grant to acquire MRI of colorectal tumors.

• Sept. 19, 2007 - Congratulations to Prof. Karczmar and the MRIS facility for successfully transitioning from the R21 phase to the R33 phase of his grant entitled “Microvessel Density with High Spectral/Spatial MRI”.

• Sept. 17, 2007 - Congratulation to Sunny for receiving the RSNA Trainee Research Prize $1,000.

• Sept. 13, 2007 - Suraj had his PhD committee update meeting today to discuss the data he acquired and plans to complete his thesis.

• Sept. 12, 2007 - Congratulations to Sunny, Drs. Mustafi and Fan for their abstracts accepted for oral presentations in the 93rd Annual Meeting of the RSNA, Chicago, IL, November 25-30, 2007.

• Sept. 12, 2007 - Congratulation to Dr. Mustafi for his publication in Chemistry & Biology 14, 824-834 (2007).

• Sept. 12, 2007 - Congratulation to Dr. Roman for receiving pilot funding from the cancer center to look at MR detection of pancreatic cancer.

• Aug. 30, 2007 - The 9.4 T scanner is working now!