Although the combination of PET with CT is most prevalent in the clinic, recent developments in detector design have led to the creation of combined PET/MR scanners that offer advantages over PET/CT, such as increased soft tissue contrast, lower radiation dose and the potential application of MRI contrast agents.

The introduction of clinical PET/MRI scanners increases the demand for multimodal contrast agents, achieved either by using a cocktail of known imaging agents or by developing new dual modality
contrast agents in which both components are linked into one
construct.

Research in the Archibald and Cawthorne groups at Hull focuses on the creation of multimodal imaging constructs based on silica-shell iron oxide nanoparticles and heavy metal free quantum dots.