This is the first textbook dedicated to CEST imaging and covers the fundamental principles of saturation transfer, key features of CEST agents that enable the production of imaging contrast, and practical aspects of preparing image-acquisition and post-processing schemes suited for in vivo applications. CEST is a powerful MRI contrast mechanism with unique features, and the rapid expansion it has seen over the past 15 years since its original discovery in 2000 has created a need for a graduate-level handbook describing all aspects of pre-clinical, translational, and clinical CEST imaging. The book provides an illustrated historical perspective by leaders at the five key sites who developed CEST imaging, from the initial saturation transfer NMR experiments performed in the 1960s in Stockholm, Sweden, described by Sture Forsen, to the work on integrating the basic principles of CEST into imaging by Robert Balaban, Dean Sherry, Silvio Aime, and Peter van Zijl in the United States and Italy.

The editors, Drs. Michael T. McMahon, Assaf A. Gilad, Jeff W. M. Bulte, and Peter C. M. van Zijl, have been pioneers developing this field at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Kennedy Krieger Institute including contributions to Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Materials, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. As recognition for their initial development of the field, Drs. van Zijl and Balaban were awarded the Laukien Prize in April 2016, established in 1999 to honor the memory of Professor Gunther Laukien, a co-founder of Bruker Biospin GmbH.