ABSTRACT
Diabetes is a group of metabolic disorders that result from defects in insulin secretion or action. Accomplishing the goal of cellular imaging in diabetes, however, presents a tremendous challenge. Identifying the key cellular events that define the pathology of diabetes and become manifest at early enough stages of the disease to allow intervention is a demanding process critical for the success of imaging. Molecular imaging can provide answers to many of the questions related to diabetes. Based on this model, it appears that the application of magnetic resonance imaging for the measurement of endogenous beta-cell mass is feasible. Hyperpolarization can be achieved using a variety of methods, but recent advances in dynamic nuclear polarization have shown tremendous potential for molecular imaging.
