Kevin Brindle, PhD gives an overview of his talk at the 2015 National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference, where he described a new technique called nuclear spin hyperpolarization, that can increase the sensitivity of the magnetic resonance by 10,000 fold. This technique can have several uses, including detection of treatment response and investigation of tumour microenvironment. In his talk Kevin Brindle focuses on the use of this technique in brain tumours.