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Abstract #4309

Using Pyruvic Acid as a Solvent for Dynamic Nuclear Polarization Sample Preparation

Albert P. Chen1, C.T. Tan2, Charles H. Cunningham3, 4

1GE Healthcare, Toronto, ON, Canada; 2Sigma-Aldrich/Isotec, Miamisburg, OH, United States; 3Imaging Research, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada; 4Medical Biophysics , University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada


One of the requirements for obtaining high polarization for organic substrates is that the DNP samples become amorphous solids at low temperature. Although neat pyruvic acid is typically used as the sole substrate in the DNP sample matrix, it may be feasible to use pyruvic acid as the solvent and dissolve other substrates of interest. Not only would this solvent-substrate mixture form a glass at solid state, the safety profile of pyruvate has been determined for administration in humans. In this work, N-acetyl-[1-13C]methionine was used to demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing pyruvic acid as the solvent for DNP sample preparation.