New bonding motifs towards lanthanide-based metal-organic cages for PARASHIFT imaging
Publication Date
July 29, 2026
Creator
Joseph, Justin
University of Nottingham
Abstract
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a ubiquitous diagnostic technique in medicine that can produce images of most biological tissues in the body. Despite being such a powerful tool, MRI still sees challenges when it comes to background signals caused by the large amounts of fat and water in biological tissues. Paramagnetic shift (PARASHIFT) MRI utilises the paramagnetic nature of lanthanide ions which have many unpaired electrons, that shift neighbouring hydrogen environments on an MRI scan up or down chemical shift. To maximise the intensity of the shifted peaks, tert-butyl groups can be used, allowing for a clearer reading of your desired signal. Metal-organic cages are an interesting choice for PARASHIFT agents, as they are highly symmetrical. By leveraging the high order of symmetry, we can increase the integration of the tert-butyl group from 9 on one ligand to 108 in a metal organic cage. They also have the inherent voids that can hold other valuable molecules such as drugs, allowing for drug delivery to be monitored. In this work, we develop new bonding motifs that incorporate tert-butyl reporter group within triazole motifs to have a signal with high peak intensity to experience paramagnetic shifts, allowing for a range of cage linkers to be added through the use of alkyne-azine cycloadditions.
Item Type
ethesis
Thesis Type
MRes
Supervisors
Pilgrim, Ben
Supervisor
Co-supervisor
Subjects (LC)
Associated Schools / Departments
UoN Repository URI
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Name
Justin Joseph MRes thesis_3.pdf
Size
2.7 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
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