Dr Arnaud Comment

Senior Scientist, General Electric Healthcare, Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute

After having studied physics at EPFL, Switzerland, Arnaud Comment joined the group of Prof. Charles P. Slichter at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, for a PhD in the field of solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). He then spent the following one and half years working in condensed matter physics at the Grenoble High Magnetic Field Laboratory (CNRS/Max Planck Institute). In 2005, he launched a dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) project at EPFL. He designed and implemented a DNP setup that he coupled to a preclinical MRI scanner for performing in vivo hyperpolarized NMR and MRI. He then joined the Faculty of Biology and Medicine of the University of Lausanne to lead the developments of biomedical applications of hyperpolarized MRI in Lausanne. In 2011, he was awarded a professorship grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation and became assistant professor at EPFL. In 2015, he joined General Electric Healthcare as senior scientist to further develop  the clinical applications of hyperpolarized 13C imaging. Since 2016, he has also been working on a project supported by an ERC Consolidator grant hosted by the University of Cambridge at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute (CRUKCI).

The overall aim of his current research is to break new grounds in metabolic and molecular imaging and to lead novel methods and technologies towards clinical applications. His expertise in instrumentation along with his background in physics provides him with unique opportunities to translate discoveries from basic science research into medical applications. He is committed to a multidisciplinary approach which combines physics, engineering, chemistry, biology and medicine in order to develop hyperpolarized 13C MRI and new imaging methods based on secondary-ion mass-spectroscopy (SIMS) as technologies to answer key questions relating to mammalian metabolism both in healthy and diseased tissues.