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D. S. Fahmeed Hyder, PhD

Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and of Biomedical Engineering
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Additional Titles

Technical Director, Magnetic Resonance Research Center (mrrc.yale.edu)

Program Director, Core Center for Quantitative Neuroscience with Magnetic Resonance (qnmr.yale.edu)

About

Titles

Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and of Biomedical Engineering

Technical Director, Magnetic Resonance Research Center (mrrc.yale.edu); Program Director, Core Center for Quantitative Neuroscience with Magnetic Resonance (qnmr.yale.edu)

Biography

Dr. Hyder is Professor of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, where he is a founding faculty member. He is Head of MRS Group of the MRRC and Director of QNMR Research Program. He studied physical chemistry at Wabash College (BA 1990) and biophysical chemistry at Yale University (PhD 1995).

Dr. Hyder studies brain energy metabolism. His lab develops magnetic resonance (MR) based imaging methods to study brain physiology and chemistry, revealing how neuronal-glial cells fuel their function and (re)growth. He posits that mapping metabolic dysfunction (e.g., energetics for cellular function vs. cellular proliferation) can indicate early biomarkers of brain disorders and diseases. To map brain’s physiology and chemistry with MR-based imaging and spectroscopic advances and targeted delivery and monitoring of treatments, his laboratory conducts multidisciplinary functional and molecular imaging of neurodegeneration and neuro-oncology, requiring expertise in physics to chemistry to engineering to cancer biology to neuroscience. His contributions include development of high-resolution fMRI in preclinical models, calibrated fMRI for quantitative imaging of neuronal activity, and molecular imaging methods for pH and temperature mapping and other physiological parameters that are relevant in cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Dr. Hyder has written and edited books on functional brain imaging and holds several patents on molecular imaging of cancer. His research work has produced over 240 papers with as many invited presentations, amassing over 20K citations. He has had continuous NIH support for 25 years, spanning across interests from 7 different NIH institutes. He has renewed grants from different funding agencies and has received several early career awards from. He sits on editorial boards of several scientific journals, and he reviews for many scientific journals spanning several disciplines. He serves on advisory panels of several funding agencies.

Dr. Hyder holds many honors, including the Melvin H. Knisely Award from the International Society on Oxygen Transport to Tissue, the Niels Lassen Award from the International Society for Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, and the Lundbeck Foundation Visiting Professorship at the University of Copenhagen. He has fellowships in American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Academy of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research, and Sigma Xi the Scientific Research Honor Society. Recently, he was appointed Head of Trumbull College at Yale University and received a General Assembly Official Citation from the State of Connecticut.

Appointments

Other Departments & Organizations

Education & Training

PhD
Yale University, Chemistry (1995)
BA
Wabash College, Chemistry (1990)
Research Fellow (with Tuan Vo-Dinh)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN
Research Fellow (with Robert G. Bryant)
University of Rochester
Post-Doctoral Associate (with Douglas L. Rothman)
Yale University
Associate Research Scientist
Yale University

Research

Overview

Specific areas of interest in functional imaging include (i) understanding the role of the extraordinarily high energy demands of ongoing and intrinsic activity within neural populations as potential for quantitative disease biomarker, (ii) advancing the spatiotemporal resolution of functional imaging to understand the relation of cellular metabolism in health and disease (e.g., healthy aging, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, epilepsy, schizophrenia), and (iii) developing advanced calibrated fMRI methods for using oxidative energy as an absolute index of neural activity, both with task and rest paradigms, across cortical and subcortical regions.

For molecular imaging we use a method called BIRDS, which we developed and quite unconventionally detects the paramagnetically-shifted and non-exchangeable protons from lanthanide (or transition) metal ion probes for high spatiotemporal resolution biosensing. Highly precise molecular imaging of temperature and pH is achievable with BIRDS. Current areas of relevance are (i) design of new molecular probes for BIRDS, (ii) early cancer detection and metastasis using absolute pH imaging, (iii) application of new probes for BIRDS as molecular targets for diseases (e.g., diabetes), and (iv) detection of tumor response to treatments (e.g., radiation, chemotherapy, heat).

Calibrated fMRI for basal metabolism – simulation studies to assess sensitivities required for fMRI and perfusion data to extract basal metabolism from calibrated fMRI data

Quantitative metabolic PET – analysis of whole brain PET data of glucose and oxidative metabolism in the human brain in relation to blood flow

Liposomal BIRDS – development and/or characterization of newly developed probes encapsulated inside liposomes for BIRDS

Dendrimeric BIRDS – development and/or characterization of newly developed macromolecular-based probes for BIRDS

Medical Research Interests

Biomedical Engineering; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Molecular Probes; Neoplasms by Histologic Type; Neurosciences; Radiology

Research at a Glance

Yale Co-Authors

Frequent collaborators of D. S. Fahmeed Hyder's published research.

Publications

2024

Clinical Trials

Current Trials

Academic Achievements & Community Involvement

  • honor

    General Assembly Official Citation

  • honor

    Adjunct Fellow

  • honor

    Fellow

  • honor

    Distinguished Investigator Award

  • honor

    Lundbeck Foundation Visiting Professorship

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