Subatomic MRI could lead to new drug therapies

A new imaging technique using quantum science may lead to novel drug therapies and treatment options, a recent study has found. Researchers at the University of Waterloo and supported by Transformative Quantum Technologies have demonstrated the feasibility of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance diffraction (NMRd) to investigate the lattice structure of crystalline solids on an atomic scale, a feat that had only been possible for larger-scale imaging applications like Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). "NMRd was proposed in 1973 as a method to study the structure of materials," said Dr. Holger Haas, one of the lead authors of the study and alumnus of the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) in Waterloo, now at IBM. "At the time, the authors discarded their idea as ludicrous. Our work comes tantalizingly close to realizing this crazy idea of theirs - we have shown that it is possible to study structures on an atomic length scale over sample volumes that are relevant for many biological and physical systems. "NMRd opens up a tremendous variety of capabilities in many research directions, including studying both nanocrystals and organic compounds," added Haas. The ability to image biological structures, like protein molecules and virus particles, on the atomic scale can advance the understanding of their function and potentially lead to new drug therapies and treatment options.