Towards Biomedical Applications of Parahydrogen Induced Polarization by Side-Arm Hydrogenation Using SAMBADENA

Parahydrogen-induced Polarization (PHIP) by Synthesis Amid the Magnet Bore Allows Dramatically Enhanced Nuclear Alignment (SAMBADENA) of agents in situ within the MRI magnet and requires very little hardware in addition to the MRI system. However, side-arm hydrogenation (PHIP-SAH), fast side-arm cleavage and purification have not been attempted yet. Here, we present a SAMBADENA setup made from commercially-available components for future preclinical applications. Using this setup, we demonstrate high 13C polarizations of 17% for 25mM ethyl-[1-13C]-acetate. In addition, for ethyl-pyruvate, fast side-arm cleavage and removal of 96% of the organic solvent within 10s to obtain pyruvate in neat water is demonstrated.