Zackary I. Cleveland, PhD

Associate Director, Center for Pulmonary Imaging Research
Associate Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
UC Department of Biomedical Engineering

zackary.cleveland@cchmc.org

About

Biography

Although hyperpolarized gases have been used to investigate regional pulmonary structure and function since the late 1990, the technology was not widely disseminated, because it relied on the rare and expensive stable isotope 3He. Dr. Cleveland helped pioneer the use of more readily available 129Xe, paving the way for clinical hyperpolarized gas MRI. Dr. Cleveland also helped expand the limits of preclinical MRI by demonstrating the feasibility of high resolution HP 129Xe imaging in rats and mice and by demonstrating the the first, in vivo molecular imaging applications of HP gases.

Services and Specialties

Interests

Hyperpolarized gases; pulmonary imaging; translational studies; preclinical MRI

Research Areas

Publications

Lung mucus burden and treatment response assessed by MRI in the post-modulator era. Matheson, AM; Prather, E; Willmering, MM; Mata, J; Santyr, G; Ratjen, FA; Kramer, EL; Cleveland, ZI; Woods, JC. Journal of Cystic Fibrosis. 2026.

Comparison of Signal- and Volume-Based Ventilation-Weighted Assessment Using 3D FLORET UTE MRI in Patients With Various Pulmonary Disease. Klimeš, F; Plummer, JW; Voskrebenzev, A; Gutberlet, M; Klein, MM; Willmering, MM; Matheson, AM; Bdaiwi, AS; Wacker, F; Woods, JC; Cleveland, ZI; Walkup, LL; Vogel-Claussen, J. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 2026; 95(5):2814-2827.

C108-13 Investigating the Physiological Variability in Xe Gas-exchange MRI Metrics Across the Menstrual Cycle in Healthy Women. Ismail, BM; Hussain, R; Borden, A; Bdaiwi, AS; Garrison, W; Willmering, M; Cleveland, ZI; Walkup, L. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. 2026; 212(Supplement_1):aamag162.5468.

Structural and Functional Pulmonary MRI to Predict Pulmonary Exacerbations in Cystic Fibrosis. Matheson, AM; Bdaiwi, AS; Willmering, MM; Difrancesco, MW; Cleveland, ZI; Santyr, GE; Ratjen, F; Kramer, EL; Szczesniak, RD; Woods, JC. Chest. 2026; 169(4):919-931.

Characterization of Pulmonary Dysfunction in Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Using Xenon and Proton MRI. Garrison, WJ; Willmering, MM; Masokano, BI; Rai, S; Daou, AW; Roach, DJ; Morgan, EM; Woods, JC; Cleveland, ZI; Gecili, E; Schulert, GS; Grom, AA; Towe, CT; Walkup, LL. Pediatric Pulmonology. 2026; 61(4):e71613.

Evaluating Stack-of-Stars and FLORET 3D Ultrashort Echo Time MRI to Assess Structural Pathology in Cystic Fibrosis Lung Disease. Bdaiwi, AS; Willmering, MM; Plummer, JW; Hussain, R; Walkup, LL; Woods, JC; Cleveland, ZI. Academic Radiology. 2026; 33(2):586-599.

Comparing Mean-anchored Generalized Linear Binning with Established Methods to Quantify Xenon-129 Ventilation Defect Percentage. Hussain, R; Bdaiwi, AS; Plummer, JW; Masokano, BI; Willmering, MM; Walkup, LL; Cleveland, ZI. Academic Radiology. 2026; 33(2):569-585.

Comparative evaluation of supervised and unsupervised deep learning strategies for denoising hyperpolarized 129Xe lung MRI. Bdaiwi, AS; Willmering, MM; Hussain, R; Hysinger, E; Woods, JC; Walkup, LL; Cleveland, ZI. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 2026; 95(1):138-156.

Design and Implementation of a Multi-Center Trial of 129Xe Gas Exchange MRI and MRS to Evaluate Longitudinal Progression of COPD. Driehuys, B; Zhang, S; Bechtel, A; Hahn, AD; Collier, G; Niedbalski, PJ; Huang, Y-C; Cleveland, ZI; Willmering, MM; Mugler, JP; Fernandez Coimbra, A; Belloni, P; Bell, LC; Mummy, D. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. 2025; 62(6):1879-1891.

Establishing standardized healthy reference distributions and values for multisite 129Xe gas exchange MRI/MR spectroscopy at 3 T across major scanner platforms. Leewiwatwong, S; Bechtel, A; Mummy, D; Zhang, S; Lu, J; Costelle, A; Cleveland, ZI; Willmering, M; Parra-Robles, J; Fain, S; Hahn, AD; Tighe, RM; Driehuys, B. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 2025; 94(4):1684-1699.