Senior Research Associate

Department of Radiology, University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine.

Contact: Email: M McLean Tel.: + 44 (0)1223 256255

Profile

Mary McLean received a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Pennsylvania State University in 1989, summa cum laude, and a PhD in Biochemistry from University of Cambridge in 1994 on the topic of ¹³C-NMR tracer studies of brain metabolism.  She worked as a postdoc in cancer imaging and spectroscopy at St George’s Hospital Medical School, and in flow imaging at Imperial College London, followed by a 10-year stint as a Senior RA and Honorary Lecturer in Physics at UCL, where she was the principal physicist for MR spectroscopy in epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. During her last few years there she was also an honorary senior lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, KCL, collaborating on studies of neuropsychiatric disorders.

She returned to Cambridge in 2007 as a staff scientist in the newly-built Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, working with John Griffiths on a wide range of projects in cancer MR spectroscopy and imaging. Her recent focus has been molecular imaging of hyperpolarized ¹³C and of sodium, working with PIs Ferdia Gallagher, Evis Sala, Fiona Gilbert, and Tristan Barrett, among others.

Mary is a member of the Executive Committee of the British Chapter of ISMRM and the Founding Editor of “Positive Spin”, the newsletter of the British MR research community. Archived issues can be found at: https://www.ismrm.org/chapters/british-chapter.

Sample Publications

1. Gallagher FA, Woitek R, McLean MA, Gill AB, Garcia RM, Provenzano E, Riemer F, Kaggie J, Chhabra A, Ursprung S, Grist JT, Daniels CJ, Zaccagna F, Laurent M-C, Locke M, Hilborne S, Frary A, Torheim R, Boursnell C, Schiller A, Patterson I, Slough R, Carmo B, Kane K, Biggs H, Deen SS, Patterson A, Lanz T, Kingsbury Z, Ross M, Basu B, Baird R, Lomas DJ, Sala E, Wason J, Rueda OM, Chin S-F, Wilkinson IB, Graves MJ, Abraham J, Gilbert FJ, Caldas C, Brindle KM. Imaging metabolic heterogeneity in breast cancer using hyperpolarized 13C-MRI. PNAS(USA) 2020 Jan 28; 117(4):2092-2098. PMID: 31964840.
2. Casey RT, McLean MA, Challis BG, Warren AY, Mendil L, Houghton R, De Sanctis S, Kosmoliaptsis V, Sandford RN, Gallagher FA, Maher ER. In vivo metabolic signature of Reed Syndrome. Clin Cancer Res 2020 Jan 15; 26(2):391-396. PMID: 31636096.
3. Grist J, McLean MA, Riemer F, Schulte RF, Deen SS, Woitek R, Daniels CJ, Kaggie JD, Matys , Patterson I, Slough R, Gill AB, Chhabra A, Eichenberger R, Laurent M-C, Comment A, Gillard JH, Coles AJ, Tyler DJ, Wilkinson I, Basu B, Lomas DJ, Graves MJ, Brindle KM, Gallagher FA. Quantifying hyperpolarized [1-13C]pyruvate metabolism within the normal human brain using magnetic resonance imaging. Neuroimage 2019:189:171-179.
4. Casey R, McLean M, Madhu B, Challis B, ten Hoopen R, Roberts R, Clark G, Pitfield D, Simpson H, Bulusu VR, Allinson K, Happerfield L, Park S-M, Marker A, Giger O, Maher E, Gallagher F. Translating in vivo metabolomic analysis of succinate dehydrogenase deficient tumours into clinical utility. J Clin Onc Precision Oncol 2018 (doi: 10.1200/PO.17.00191).
5. Barrett T, Riemer F, McLean MA, Kaggie J, Robb F, Tropp JS, Warren A, Bratt O, Shah N, Gnanapragasam VJ, Gilbert FJ, Graves MJ, Gallagher FA. Quantification of total and intracellular sodium concentration in primary prostate cancer and adjacent normal prostate tissue with magnetic resonance imaging. Invest Radiol 2018; 53:450-456.