Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technologies have revolutionized how we visualize biology, diagnose diseases, and evaluate medical treatments. The phenomena underpinning them enable us to uniquely capture structure, chemistry, dynamics, and function in living systems. As we enter the realm of high-field magnets enabled by new superconducting materials, new opportunities for characterizing how organisms function and develop are emerging. I will show how we exploit magnets coupled to resonance instrumentation in biomedical research labs and clinical settings. I will then discuss where we see bench-to-bedside translation of MR technologies going as high magnetic fields become more widely available.

Prof. Joanna Long earned her B.S. in Chemistry in 1990, graduating summa cum laude from the University of Arkansas. She received an NSF Graduate Fellowship to pursue a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, she specialized in the development of biological solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy methods advised by Prof. Robert Griffin and graduated in 1997. She then conducted postdoctoral research in biomineralization at the University of Washington (1997-2000) in the laboratories of Profs. Patrick Stayton and Gary Drobny. After two years as a staff scientist in the UW Department of Chemistry, Dr. Long joined the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at the University of Florida as an Assistant Professor in 2002. She was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2009 and Full Professor in 2018. Prof. Long holds a joint appointment at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) and has served as Director of the Advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy Facility since 2009, as well as a co-Principal Investigator and Associate Laboratory Director of the NHMFL since 2013. Her research focuses on developing methods to enhance NMR sensitivity and applications in biological and biomedical contexts with a particular emphasis on using dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) and high magnetic field technologies to characterize proteins, lipid membranes, and metabolism. Her projects are currently supported by the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation. She is a recipient of a Research Foundation Professorship (2019), a University Term Professorship (2016), and teaching awards from UF.