Abstract #0188

Tran L, Muthupillai R, Bolskar R, Flamm S, Wilson L, Mikos A, Sitaraman B

Carbon nanostructures containing paramagnetic gadolinium (Gd) exhibit unusually large proton relaxivities compared to commercially available Gd-based MR contrast agents used today. We report the results from our first MRI phantom studies on two such nano-probes, Gd@C60 metallofullerenes, and Gd@ultrashort tubes (nanotubes). Our results show that, even at modest concentrations of Gd, these nanoprobes show extremely large signal enhancements. The high proton relaxivity of these probes, coupled with their ability to translocate across cell membranes with minimal cytotoxicity may render them attractive candidates for cellular MRI.