The Novo Nordisk - Interdisciplinary Synergy Programme 2025 has granted Professor Sune Jespersen from CFIN, Aarhus University DKK 19,450,066 to head the project: "Quantum-sensed Magnetic Resonance Imaging (QuantuMRI): Imaging beyond the voxel".

MRI is a minimally invasive tool for deep-tissue imaging in living organisms, but its typical spatial resolution (0.1–1 mm) is insufficient to resolve important cellular and sub-cellular changes such as those underlying cancer, inflammation, and neurodegeneration. QuantuMRI add resses this critical limitation by integrating nanoscale quantum sensing with macroscopic MRI, enabling the readout of metabolic, morphological, and functional tissue properties at unprecedented resolution.

To achieve this, we propose a novel imaging platform where quantum information from nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in functionalized nanodiamonds (NDs) —which can sense important cellular parameters including pH, temperature, ion concentration, and membrane permeability— is amplified, and transferred to surrounding water protons via magnetization saturation-transfer mechanisms. This bridging between the NV’s nano/microscopic sensing and MRI’s voxel-scale signals will be realized at low magnetic fields and enhanced through AI-based denoising and miniaturized detection technologies, which are currently transforming low-field MRI. 

The project builds upon multiple lines of preliminary research from our own and from other groups, evidencing that QuantuMRI’s key building blocks—NV-based sensing, electron hyperpolarization, nuclear resonance shifts, functionalized targeting, magnetization transfer, and advanced image readout—can be robustly implemented. The high-risk/high-gain innovation lies in their integration into a scalable platform for quantum-enhanced MRI. 

By establishing this new class of imaging, QuantuMRI will provide deep, specific insights into tissue microstructure and metabolism in living systems, fundamentally advance our understanding of disease, enable earlier and more precise diagnostics across biomedical disciplines, and define a new paradigm for deep tissue quantum sensing.

Team:
PI: Professor Sune Jespersen, CFIN, Aarhus University

Co-PIs:

• Amit Finkler - Weizmann Institute of Science - Chemical and Biological Physics, Israel 
  (https://www.weizmann.ac.il/chembiophys/finkler/group)
• Lucio Frydman - Weizmann Institute of Science - Department of Chemical and Biological Physics, Israel  
  (https://www.weizmann.ac.il/chembiophys/Frydman_group/home)
• Gonzalo Agustín Álvarez - Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica - Centro Atomico Bariloche & Instituto Balseiro, CONICET, CNEA, Argentina 
  (https://www.famaf.unc.edu.ar/~galvarez/main.html)

Contact
 

Sune Jespersen
https://www.au.dk/en/sune@cfin.au.dk
Email: sune@cfin.au.dk
Phone: +45 60 89 66 42

Read more about The Novo Nordisk - Interdisciplinary Synergy Programme