Postdoctoral Fellows

Lasitha Senadheera, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow, Image Guided Intervention Laboratory (IGIL)


Education:

PhD, Washington University, 2008
MA, Physics, Washington University, 2005
BSc, Physics, University of Colombo, 2002


Contact Information:

Phone: (650) 736-0619
E-mail: lasithas@stanford.edu


Research Interests:

My research focus at Stanford is to characterize radiation damage of kidney tissues using a novel metabolic imaging technique termed as hyperpolarized C-13 MRSI. In hyperpolarization, microwave irradiation is used to transfer abundant electronic spin polarization of radicals to nuclear polarization which significantly enhanced low sensitivity of C-13 nuclei. It is well known that glycolysis in metabolic pathway is more profound in tumors than normal tissues. The opposite is expected between the healthy and damaged tissues due to the radiation. Injecting hyperpolarized C-13 labeled pyruvate into living cells the activities of metabolites can be detected in vivo by MR spectroscopic imaging. This method may be extended to clinical applications in which radiation damage can be assessed to guide the dose delivery and treatment planning.