2017 wrap up

The year is winding down and an unmistakable winter weather is gripping the Suwon area. The Center this year has decided on a 7T human MRI purchase, and there was a significant increase in the research personnel in the human fMRI research area. In Dr. Lee's lab, the undergraduate research interns did an excellent job in their research presentations for undergraduate project contests (C-School) to grab a Grand prize for two semesters in a row. There was a significant progress in  collaborative research with MDs at SMC, led by Ms. Yoo, on QSM of neurological disease patients. Multiple international invited talks were delivered by Dr. Lee. For research publication, currently one paper is under revision at MRM, and another at Sci Rep (led by Prof. Park JY). Multi-orientation B0 and B1 research has taken off to a promising start in collaboration with Prof. Shim's lab (B0) and KBSI (Dr. Oh S-H, B1). Finally, a brand-new, lab-dedicated research/office space was secured in 2017 and is now being furnished for full use starting January.

Happy new year!

KSMRM PhD meeting

PhDs in the Korean Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine met at Korea Basic Science Institute (KBSI) in Ochang, about 100 km south of Seoul, on December 1st~2nd. The meeting featured short presentations from many of the principal investigators in the Society, making this a good opportunity for everyone to learn current MR-related projects that are on-going in Korea. The Society is relatively small, but is growing, and one thing that was easy to see in the meeting was that there are a healthy group of young researchers in MR physics and engineering, taking over from an older generation of scientists who pioneered MRI research in Korea from the very early days of MRI. The hosting institute is home of the 2nd 7 Tesla human MRI scanner in Korea. So there was a short tour of the 7T facility in the evening of Dec 1st. The scanner, from Phillips, appeared to be in good shape and well taken care of. It was said that the team wanted to expand research more in the direction of fMRI-based human brain disorder studies.