Guanshu Liu1, Assaf A. Gilad2, Jeff W.M. Bulte2, Peter C.M. van Zijl1, Michael T. McMahon1
1F.M. Kirby Center, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA; 2Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
We developed a high throughput MRI method for screening Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer (CEST) agents. This approach allows simultaneous evaluation of multiple samples in presence of B0 inhomogeneity. Data with and without shimming were comparable in quality. As a first example, we screened a library of 16 samples and were able to obtain high quality CEST spectra with an average acquisition time of 2.6 minutes, which implies the great potential of this method in developing CEST MRI reporter agents.