ATS honors Bastiaan Driehuys for Xenon MRI work

The American Thoracic Society (ATS) has bestowed its Research Innovation and Translation Achievement Award on Bastiaan Driehuys, PhD, for his work on Xenon MRI.

The award recognizes Driehuys' efforts to bring "Xenon MRI from the bench to the clinic," according to commercial-stage lung MRI medical device developer Polarean Imaging, for whom Driehuys is chief scientific officer.

Driehuys invented hyperpolarized gas MRI while completing his doctorate in Atomic Physics at Princeton University and cofounded Polarean, according to the company. He and colleagues developed xenon-129 hyperpolarization technology, as well as novel MR image acquisition, reconstruction, and analysis strategies, and how to apply them to problems in pulmonary medicine, Polarean said.