High performance neuroimaging conference in Boston

This was the second annual conference on MR neuroimaging and neuroscience enabled by high performance gradient coils. It followed the inaugural meeting at the GE Research center in December 2022, and was held in the Brigham and Women's hospital campus in Boston on Thursday 12/14, hosted by Prof. Carl-Fredrik (CF) Westin. Compared to the last one, the talks this year were more application-oriented than engineering, although there were interesting discussions on the comparison between GE's Magnus and Siemens' Connectome gradient coils. In particular, the current Connectome "2" user, Prof. S. Huang, gave a short talk on her team's experience with the new Siemens system. This helped make the conference take on a more vendor-neutral, academic forum-like atmosphere. Participants from all over the country and even outside (Lund university of Sweden), in addition to dozens (I think) of attendees from the local, BWH-Harvard medical school, appeared to reflect and echo a high level of community interest in high-performance* brain MRI. 

[*Note: High performance in this context means high-performance gradient coils, not necessarily dependent on static fields in excess of 3T. Both Magnus and Connectome gradient coils operate at 3T.]

Year-end party

At the intersection of academia (knowledge) and industry (accountability), 

Embodying diversity and integrity, 

Living impact and not just tallying it, 

Here is the GE Research MRI Lab, with candles lit! 

11.7T in Korea

 11.7T MRI magnet in Song-do, South Korea is at field! Prof. Kyoung-Nam Kim, who kindly provided a tour of the facility, says the field is stable, homogeneous, and the first NMR signal is expected any day. Given the long delay in progress at the French site, this Gacheon University scanner may not be much behind in the race for the first human image at this field. The magnet bore for this system is relatively small (60 cm before gradient), but human imaging is not out of the question if paired with an appropriate insert gradient coil.