New tools for imaging the lung will aid in the assessment of lung function following infections with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and other lung diseses, and will help guide the development of emerging therapies. Pulmonary drug delivery provides a variety of benefits such as rapid absorption due to the high surgace area of the alveoli, direct air to blood transport, and circumvention of metabolic elimination. To advance new tools for assessing lung function and help develop pummonary delivery methods, we examined the use of aerosolized magnetic nanoparticles (nanomagnetosols) to facilitate magnetic particle imaging (MPI) of the lung. Dextran-coated superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles were fabricated and delivered to the lungs via nebulization in a mouse model. MPI acquired immediately after delivery shows substantial signals in the lungs, which was confrimed by co-registration of X-ray Computed tomographic (CT) images. This study demonstrates that direct delivery of therapeutucs via inhalation can be non-invasively monitored using MPI
