Giles Santyr

Dr. Giles Santyr is a medical biophysicist working with physicians and engineers to develop new techniques for imaging the lungs of children. He pursued undergraduate studies in Physics at Queen’s University in Kingston and received his PhD in Medical Biophysics from the University of Toronto.  

He went on to work as a research associate and assistant scientist at the University of Wisconsin, where he earned a National Cancer Institute FIRST award. Moving to Carleton University in Ottawa in 1995, he helped establish the Ottawa Medical Physics Institute and helped pioneer hyperpolarized xenon-129 for lung MRI. In 2004, he joined the Robarts Research Institute, where he held a CIHR Industry-Partnered Chair award for Respiratory Imaging as the Director of the Robarts GE 3T MRI Facility.  

He joined The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) as a senior scientist in 2013 where he develops new MRI approaches to study the lungs of children and newborns.

Research

The Santyr lab is currently focusing on the use of hyperpolarized xenon-129 gas, an inert inhaled contrast agent with a strong MRI signal, to measure regional lung function in obstructive lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis and asthma. Xenon-129 is also able to probe the structure of the smallest airways (I.e. alveoli), as well as gas exchange between the alveoli and blood pool. This may be useful for revealing microstructural and gas exchange changes associated with lung diseases of prematurity, such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia.  

Current research interests include: 

• Development of new xenon-129 and proton MRI approaches and biomarkers for assessing disease progression and therapeutic response in pediatric cystic fibrosis and severe asthma 
• Application of structural and functional MRI to understanding bronchopulmonary dysplasia in humans and animal models 
• Use of MRI for monitoring of novel lung stem cell treatments  
• Development of novel technologies for neonatal lung MRI  
• Assessment of radiation and ventilator-induced lung injuries using xenon-129 MRI 

Education and experience

• 1985: B.Sc. Physics (Honours), Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada
• 1990: PhD, Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2004: FCCPM, Fellow, Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine 

1. Couch M., R. Thomen, N. Kanhere, R. Hu, F. Ratjen, J. Woods and G. Santyr, A Two-Center Analysis of Hyperpolarized 129Xe Lung MRI in Stable Pediatric Cystic Fibrosis: Potential as a Biomarker for Multi-site Trials, Cyst. Fibrosis News (July, 2019).  
2. Friedlander Y., B. Zanette, A. Lindemaier, S. Sadanand, D. Li., E. Stirrat, M. Couch, A. Kassner, R. Jankov and G. Santyr, Chemical Shift of 129Xe Dissolved in Red Blood Cells: Application to a Rat Model of Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia, Magn. Reson. Med. (e-pub ahead of print, October, 2019). 
3. Couch M., F. Morgado, N. Kanhere, K. Kowalik, J. Rayment, F. Ratjen and G. Santyr, Hyperpolarized 129Xe Multiple Breath Wash-out MRI in Pediatric Cystic Fibrosis, revised for Magn. Reson. Med. (August, 2019). 
4. Riberdy V., M. Litvack, E. Stirrat, M. Couch, M. Post and G. Santyr, Hyperpolarized 129Xe Imaging of Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Alveolar-Like Macrophages in Rat Lungs: Proof-of-Concept Study Using Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles, revised for Magn. Reson. Med. (June, 2019). 
5. Zanette B. and G. Santyr, Accelerated Interleaved Spiral-IDEAL Imaging of Hyperpolarized 129Xe for Parametric Gas Exchange Mapping in HumansMagn. Reson. Med. 2019 Sep; 82(3):1113-1119. doi: 10.1002/mrm.27765.