The laboratory of Mark Woods, Ph.D., focuses on the development of new, more effective, MRI contrast media. Woods’ has a particular interest in new contrast agents that target specific tissue pathologies. In order to be successful in a targeted imaging setting, a contrast agent must be much more effective than those currently used in clinical medicine. The amount of contrast agent at the site of interest is inevitably going to be far lower in a targeted application, making detection in an MRI much more difficult. Improving the effectiveness of gadolinium-based MRI contrast agent is a key goal of our research, which he is pursuing both at OHSU and with his group at Portland State University. 

Dr. Woods received his B.Sc. from the University of York in 1995. He went on to earn his Ph.D. from the University of Durham in 1998, studying under the supervision of Professor David Parker. In 1999 he was a Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) fellow at the Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 where he worked on palladium catalyzed cascade reactions. In 2000, he returned to the field of lanthanide chemistry, joining the group of Professor Dean Sherry at the University of Texas at Dallas as a postdoctoral research associate. In 2004, Dr. Woods accepted a position as senior research scientist in imaging at Macrocyclics. After three years in this post, he returned to academic research, first at the University of Texas at Dallas and then at OHSU and Portland State University. 

Dr. Woods currently holds a joint appointment with the Advanced Research Imaging Center at OHSU and the Department of Chemistry at Portland State University. He shares his time equally between the two institutions.