In Vivo MR Techniques in Drug Discovery and Development

Imaging technologies are receiving much attention in the pharmaceutical industry because of their potential for accelerating drug discovery and development. Magnetic Resonance (MR) Imaging is one of the principal modalities since it allows anatomical, functional, metabolic, and to a certain extent even target-related information to be gathered in vivo at high resolution, favoring the characterization of a disease state and the corresponding drug intervention. The non-invasiveness of MR strengthens the link between preclinical and clinical pharmaceutical research, contributing to improve the characterization of compound effects in early stages of the discovery process in order to increase the chances of success in later phases of drug development. Edited by a leading researcher in MR technology, with contributions from foremost experts in academia and the pharmaceutical industry, this title illustrates the use of MR techniques throughout the drug discovery and development process, from target identificationand validation to clinical studies. Numerous chapters focus on individual disease areas, including neurological, cardiac, and pulmonary disorders, cancer studies, diabetes, arthritis, solid organ transplantation, and stem cell-based therapies, showing that different imaging solutions are needed for specific organs.