Hiroshi Hirata

The IES Medal in Instrumentation and Methods Development for 2024 is awarded to Professor Hiroshi Hirata for his seminal contributions to advancing EPR spectroscopic mapping techniques and low-field EPR spectrometers for biomedical applications. Professor Hirata demonstrated the significant acceleration of CW-EPR imaging and enabled fast EPR imaging for small animal measurements. Based on this technical advancement, Professor Hirata demonstrated EPR spectroscopic mapping for biologically essential targets, such as extracellular pH for mouse tumor models in vivo and the partial pressure of oxygen, pH, and the concentration of inorganic phosphate in vitro. His instrument developments of a low-field EPR spectrometer, including RF tunable resonators, automatic control techniques compensating animal motions, and fast data acquisition in CW-EPR, have supported these spectroscopic mapping achievements. This technological advancement in EPR spectroscopic mapping promotes EPR-based imaging studies for small animals.