Jay Zweier, MD 

Biomedical imaging holds great promise for understanding and treating disease. One particular area of imaging expertise at Ohio State involves characterizing free radicals and their role in normal physiology and disease.

Oxygen-derived free radicals are small, naturally occurring, highly reactive molecules that exist in all cells of the body. During their brief (typically subsecond) lifetime, they can be critical messengers in cell signaling, or, in higher amounts, they can cause oxidative damage to DNA, proteins and cell membranes – thus serving as a central mechanism of many disease processes.

Jay Zweier, MD, professor of Internal Medicine and director of the OSU Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute (DHLRI), and his lab team develop and apply techniques of magnetic resonance spectroscopy and imaging to characterize free radical mechanisms of cellular pathology and disease. They have devised several electron paramagnetic resonance methods to measure reactive free radicals in cells and tissues.            

“The main research focus in our laboratory is to characterize the role of free radicals in the mechanisms of ischemic heart disease and to develop new approaches to salvage heart muscle at risk in the setting of acute myocardial infarction (heart attack),” says Zweier, noting that OSU over the past two years has received for these efforts more than $14 million in grants that he has directed or co-directed.

For example, Zweier is principal investigator for a $3 million grant the DHLRI received in 2004 from the National Institutes of Health to develop a device that will produce images showing free radicals in living animals. The device combines the capabilities of proton magnetic resonance imaging technology, which produces images of the body’s organs and tissues, with electron paramagnetic resonance imaging, an emerging technology that shows free radicals in tissues.

Free radicals are thought to play an important role in cancer, heart and lung disease, stroke, diabetic vascular disease, Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative and inflammatory diseases, but they are also important for many normal body functions such as cell signaling, immune responses and wound healing.

“The development of this new instrumentation is necessary to further realize the tremendous potential of imaging technology in biomedical research,” says Zweier. “Ohio State will be the first university in the world to have this powerful new technology.”

The device also will produce images of oxygen levels in tissues, which is important when using radiation therapy to treat cancer. Radiation kills cancer cells by producing high levels of free radicals, especially oxygen free radicals, in cancer cells.