Research Summary

Dr. Pagel's research focuses on the measurement of tumor acidosis using non-invasive MRI.  His research program has refined this technique, termed “acidoCEST MRI” to measure acidosis in a variety of tumor models to study cancer biology and the effects of anti-cancer therapies.  They have also translated our acidoCEST MRI method to the clinic and we are measuring tumor acidosis levels in patients with breast, ovarian, lung and liver, and brain cancers.  Dr. Pagel's research program has also developed an MRI method that non-invasively detects enzyme activities in solid tumors.

Biography 

Dr. Marty Pagel earned his B.A. degrees in chemistry and biology at Washington University, St. Louis, MO, and then earned a Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the University of California Berkeley.  Dr. Pagel then worked as the director of the NMR and computational chemistry facilities in the Department of Chemistry at Indiana University.  He then joined Monsanto Co., which was acquired by Pharmacia Corp., which was then acquired by Pfizer Inc.  His research in industry involved the MR imaging of corn seeds and mouse models of breast cancer.  Dr. Pagel then returned to academia in 2003, when he joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University to start a research program in molecular imaging.  Dr. Pagel then moved to the University of Arizona in 2008 to expand his research program to include more chemistry development and clinical research.