Kevin Brindle

Short CV

Kevin Brindle received his BA in Biochemistry from Oxford University in 1978. In 1982 he completed his D.Phil, also at Oxford University, on “Proton NMR studies of intact cells”. From 1983 to 1990 he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford. He was awarded a Royal Society Research Fellowship in 1986. In 1990 he moved to the University of Manchester, where he took up a lectureship in 1991. Since 1993 he has worked at the University of Cambridge,  where he was appointed professor in 2005. He has a joint appointment with the University of Cambridge and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.

Selected Awards

•         Elected Fellow of the Royal Society, April 2020.
•         Elected Fellow of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
•         Elected President of the European Society of Molecular Imaging 2018, March 2017.
•         Elected to the European Academy of Cancer Sciences, October 2014.
•         Gold Medal of the World Molecular Imaging Society, September 2014.
•         European Society of Molecular Imaging Award 2013, May 2013.
•         Elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences, June 2012.

Research Interests

Molecular imaging is likely to play an increasingly important role in predicting and detecting tumour responses to treatment and thus in guiding treatment in individual patients. We have been using MRI-based metabolic imaging techniques to detect tumour treatment response, to monitor disease progression, to investigate the tumour microenvironment and to identify tumour metabolic subtypes that display distinct therapeutic vulnerabilities.  Initially this was using hyperpolarized ¹³C-labelled substrates.  Nuclear spin hyperpolarization increases sensitivity in the ¹³C magnetic resonance experiment by >10,000x, which allows imaging of injected hyperpolarized ¹³C labelled cell substrates in vivo and, more importantly, the kinetics of their metabolic conversion into other cell metabolites. More recently we have been using ²H-labelled substrates; the relatively low sensitivity of detection is compensated by the very short T₁s displayed by this quadrupolar nucleus, which enables extensive signal averaging in the absence of signal saturation.  We are now actively engaged in Cambridge in translating novel hyperpolarized ¹³C and ²H-labelled substrates into the clinic.

Selected Publications

• Low, J.C.M., Cao, J., Hesse, F., Wright, A.J., Tsyben, A., Alshamleh, I., Mair, R. and Brindle, K.M. (2024) Deuterium Metabolic Imaging Differentiates Glioblastoma Metabolic Subtypes and Detects Early Response to Chemoradiotherapy. Cancer Res 84, 1996-2008.
   
• Early detection of cancer. Crosby, D., Bhatia, S., Brindle, K.M., Coussens, L.M., Dive, C., Emberton, M., Esener, S., Fitzgerald, R.C., Gambhir, S.S., Kuhn, P., Rebbeck, T.R. and Balasubramanian, S. (2022) Science 375, 1244-1255.
   
• Monitoring tumor cell death in murine tumor models using deuterium magnetic resonance spectroscopy and spectroscopic imaging. Hesse, F., Somai, V., Kreis, F., Bulat, F., Wright, A.J. and Brindle, K.M. (2021) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118, e2014631118.
   
• Metabolic Imaging Detects Resistance to PI3Kα Inhibition Mediated by Persistent FOXM1 Expression in ER+ Breast Cancer. Ros, S., Wright, A.J., D'Santos, P., Hu, D.-e., Hesketh, R.L., Lubling, Y., Georgopoulou, D., Lerda, G., Couturier, D.-L., Razavi, P., Pelossof, R., Batra, A.S., Mannion, E., Lewis, D.Y., Martin, A., Baird, R.D., Oliveira, M., de Boo, L.W., Linn, S.C., Scaltriti, M., Rueda, O.M., Bruna, A., Caldas, C. and Brindle, K.M. (2020) Cancer Cell 38, 1-18.
   
• Imaging breast cancer using hyperpolarized carbon-13 MRI. Gallagher, F.A., Woitek, R., McLean, M.A., Gill, A.B., Manzano Garcia, R., Provenzano, E., Riemer, F., Kaggie, J., Chhabra, A., Ursprung, S., Grist, J.T., Daniels, C.J., Zaccagna, F., Laurent, M.-C., Locke, M., Hilborne, S., Frary, A., Torheim, T., Boursnell, C., Schiller, A., Patterson, I., Slough, R., Carmo, B., Kane, J., Biggs, H., Harrison, E., Deen, S.S., Patterson, A., Lanz, T., Kingsbury, Z., Ross, M., Basu, B., Baird, R., Lomas, D.J., Sala, E., Wason, J., Rueda, O.M., Chin, S.-F., Wilkinson, I.B., Graves, M.J., Abraham, J.E., Gilbert, F.J., Caldas, C. and Brindle, K.M. (2020) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, 2092-2098.
   
• Measuring tumor glycolytic flux in vivo by using fast deuterium MRI. Kreis, F., Wright, A.J., Hesse, F., Fala, M., Hu, D.E. and Brindle, K.M. (2020) Radiology 294, 289-296.
   
• The urea transporter – a novel substrate-free MRI gene reporter detected using transmembrane water exchange imaging. Schilling, F., Ros, S., Hu, D-E., D'Santos, P., McGuire, S., Mair, R., Wright, A., Mannion, E., Franklin, R.J.M., Neves, A.A., and Brindle, K.M. (2016) Nature Biotechnology 35, 75-80.
   
• Magnetic resonance imaging of tumor glycolysis using hyperpolarized ¹³C labeled glucose. Rodrigues, T.B., Serrao, E.M., Kennedy, B.W.C., Hu, D.-E., Kettunen, M.I., and Brindle, K.M. (2014). Nature Medicine 20, 93-97.
   
• Dual-modality gene reporter for in vivo imaging. Patrick, P.S., Hammersley, J., Loizou, L., Kettunen, M.I., Rodrigues, T.B., Hu, D.-E., Tee, S.-S., Hesketh, R., Lyons, S.K., Soloviev, D., Lewis, D.Y., Aime, S., Fulton, S.M., and Brindle, K.M. (2014) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 111, 415–420.
   
• Magnetic resonance imaging of pH in vivo using hyperpolarized ¹³C-labelled bicarbonate. Gallagher, F.A., Kettunen, M.I., Day, S.E., Hu, D.-E., Ardenkjaer-Larsen, J.H., in't Zandt, R., Jensen, P.R., Karlsson, M., Golman, K., Lerche, M.H., and Brindle, K.M. (2008). Nature 453, 940-973.
   
• Detecting tumor response to treatment using hyperpolarized ¹³C magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy. Day, S.E., Kettunen, M.I., Gallagher, F.A., Hu, D.-E., Lerche, M., Wolber, J., Golman, K., Ardenkjaer-Larsen, J.H., and Brindle, K.M. (2007). Nature Medicine 13, 1382-1387.
   
• Non-invasive detection of apoptosis using magnetic resonance imaging and a targeted contrast agent. Zhao, M., Beauregard, D.A., Loizou, L., Davletov, B., and Brindle, K.M. (2001). Nature Medicine 7, 1241-1244.