WASHINGTON – The National Institute of Health has awarded a $1 million grant to Houston's Rice University and the Texas Heart Institute to continue research on how to make MRIs more sensitive with the use of nanotechnology.

NIH officials said coupling magnetic resonance imaging with newly developed nanotube technology could make MRI technology 40 times more sensitive.

“This is an exciting and important step that will help meld two very promising technologies developed at our partnering institutions in a way that holds a lot of lifesaving promise,” said James Willerson, president of THI and a partner in the stem-cell research.

The technology, called the Sterotaxis Magnetic Navigation System, couples MRI technology with magnetized nanotube-encased stem cells to track and improve stem cells therapy in cardiology patients. THI at St. Lukes Episcopal Hospital, a Houston-based healthcare provider, is slated to be the first to use this system, upon approval, to treat heart rhythm problems and repair damaged heart tissue, said THI officials.

Officials from Rice University said the funding will help enable researchers to improve technology based on an ultrasensitive class of MRI contrast agents that will improve the contrast quality of MRI diagnosis images, improving the quality of care.

Researchers said the contrast agents are encased inside hollow tubes of pure carbon, called nanotubes, to eliminate the toxicity of the gadolinium metal used. These ‘gadonanotubes’ are at least 40 times more effective at boosting MRI signals than traditional gadolinium contrast agents.

The goal is to use the gadonantubes along with the MRI to track stem cells in the body, said researchers.

"There's a great deal of interest in using stem cells to regenerate damaged heart tissue, but there hasn't been a really effective way to track the cells in vivo (within the body) and test their effectiveness," said Lon Wilson, a professor of chemistry at Rice who invented the gadonanotube. "Gadonanotubes may be what's needed because they are small enough to internally label individual cells with a large number of nanotubes and sensitive enough to track the cells in real time."

Challenge Grants are part of the NIH’s stimulus funding initiative, drawing on the $200 million allotted from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed in early 2009.