Dr. Christian Goldsmith (Auburn University) will present “The Development of Redox-Responsive MRI Contrast Agents – Steps Towards Detecting Oxidative Stress in Biological Systems” to the department.

Oxidative stress has been implicated in a wide variety of lethal and debilitating health conditions. The lack of sensors capable of imaging in vivo oxidative stress precludes us from fully understanding what roles reactive oxygen species play in disease progression. The Goldsmith laboratory has developed three Mn(II) complexes with redox-active ligands that are stable enough in water to serve as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). These complexes react rapidly with H2O2 but do not display significant responses to O2. Installing quinol groups into the ligand framework allow turn-on responses to H2O2 in the T1-derived relaxivity. The sensor with the largest turn-on in relaxivity was used in ex vivo cardiac imaging. Preliminary results suggest that the probe can detect oxidative stress induced by the anti-cancer compound doxorubicin.

Biosketch: Prof. Goldsmith grew up in a suburb just outside of Boston, MA and attended Harvard University as an undergraduate, earning an A. B. in Chemistry in 1998 while performing research under the direction of Dick Holm. After this, Chris enrolled at Stanford University for his graduate work and obtained his Ph.D. in 2004 under the direction of Dan Stack. He was a postdoc for Steve Lippard at MIT until 2007, which is when he began his appointment at Auburn University. Dr. Goldsmith was promoted to Associate Professor in 2013. His independent research focuses on developing redox-active molecules capable of either catalyzing hydrocarbon oxidation reactions or serving as small molecule sensors for biologically relevant oxidants.