On Thursday 14 March 2019, PhD student Daniel Højrup Johansen from Center for Hyperpolarization in Magnetic Resonance succesfully defended his PhD thesis on Cryogenic Single and Array Coils for Magnetic Resonance Systems.
Examiners at the defence were Professor Jim Wild, University of Sheffield, Research Faculty III William W. Brey, Florida State University, and Associate Professor Tim Dyrby, DTU.
The defence ended with a unanimous recommendation from the examiners' committee that the PhD degree should be conferred on Daniel Johansen for scientific work of high quality and relevance and wide applicability.
Chairperson at the defence was Associate Professor Samel Arslanagic, DTU.
For the past three years, Daniel has worked on the design and implementation of radio frequency receive hardware optimized for maximal signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for hyperpolarized metabolic MR. His thesis investigates three primary topics within receiver hardware for MR imaging systems utilizing dDNP of 13C at 3 T: Preamplifiers, volume coils, and array coils.
Hyperpolarized Magnetic Resonance (MR) is a novel imaging modality with superior capabilities for anatomical, functional and metabolic imaging. An increasing number of university hospitals are carrying out clinical trials on cancer patients using hyperpolarization by dissolution Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (dDNP). Novel hardware is essential to support the unique clinical value proposition of dDNP MR.
Daniel's research has been supported by Danish National Research Foundation as part of DTU's HYPERMAG Center of Excellence. It would not have been possible without a collaboration with Aarhus University's MR Research Centre for scanner testing of coils. The project also involved an extended research secondment at German coil design company RAPID Biomedical GmbH. For more information, please visit http://www.hypermag.dtu.dk/research/phd-projects/daniel-hoejrup-johansen.
Supervisors were Associate Professor Vitaliy Zhurbenko, Professor Jan Henrik Ardenkjær-Larsen, both DTU, and Associate Professor Christoffer Laustsen, Aarhus University.
A final version of the PhD thesis will be available for download from DTU Orbit shortly, where Daniel's published work is already available: http://orbit.dtu.dk/en/persons/daniel-hoejrup-johansen(114285a3-128f-493e-b93a-e30c40bb6e96)/publications.html.
Top photo left to right: Samel Arslanagic, Daniel Højrup Johansen, Tim Dyrby, Jim Wild, William Brey, Vitaliy Zhurbenko, Jan Aardenkjær-Larsen.
Below photo: Daniel at the defence.
