TTT and NWO Take-off Grant for a UT Team- Olga Koshkina, Timo Rheinberger and Frederik R. Wurm

A Team from Sustainable Polymer Chemistry — O. Koshkina (team lead), T. Rheinberger, and F. R. Wurm — received two grants to bring SPC research to the application. Last month they were granted a TTT grant from 4TU, and this summer a prestigious NWO Take-off Phase 1 grant “Biodegradable, Phosphorus based Imaging Agents for Hot Spot Magnetic Resonance Imaging- Phos4MR”.

In Phos4MR they aim to bring sustainable and efficient imaging agents for Hot‐Spot Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to the patient. Hot‐Spot MRI images non‐radioactive elements other than body‐own protons from water, enabling imaging of cardiovascular conditions, cancer, and monitoring of immunotherapies. However, today’s MRI agents display major drawbacks. They are toxic, present an environmental threat, and can accumulate in human tissues and the environment as they contain heavy metals or perfluorinated substances (PFAS). The UT team will introduce a platform technology for imaging phosphorus‐31, which will solve these problems: Uniquely, Phos4MR introduces biocompatible and biodegradable polyphosphoesters for MRI.