7T MRI scanner user training

On August 1-3, Siemens provided a 3 day hands-on training for the general users of the 7T Terra system. Led by Dr. Ioannis Giapitzakis and Mr. Jongmoon Hahm, the educational sessions held in the N Center were well attended and helpful. The training consisted of a couple of lectures on high-field MR safety and principles, and demonstrations and practices on the center's new 7T scanner with plenty of user-instructor interactions. The system is currently not approved (by the Korean government) for routine patient scans, nor is yet cleared for research use on human subjects by the SKKU's institutional review board. So this time, the training included scans only on phantoms. What was particularly useful was detailed explanation/demo on general features of the scanner's user interface, which in large part are common between the 3T and the 7T scanners in the Center. This gave a chance to clear/resolve some of the doubts about scanner operation that many people have had before. The training sessions will continue when human scans are approved for either research or clinical use. For now animal and phantom scans can proceed without much delay. It does appear that the 7T system is well constructed for basic-level scans as a commercial product. It is noted that features and functions from the 3T scanner are relatively seamlessly transferred to the 7T system, to the benefit of both the users and the manufacturer.

Summer Intership concluded

The 2018 CNIR/BME summer internship program was concluded on Friday 7/20, with a poster presentation by about 10 students/student pairs. For the lab, the summer project ended up being not one of the titles suggested in the previous web log, but was on gradient waveform changes according to peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) control. This was fruitful, and the students, Seul LEE and Doyeon KIM, liked the project. This has a potential for a local/international MRI conference presentation, and perhaps a quick journal publication after more data be collected. The other teams also appear to have achieved something presentable, given the overall quality and content of the other posters. In the MRI-related projects, there were numerical validation of accelerated imaging (SMASH, GRAPPA), and lung image segmentation and respiratory gating tool development, all in Matlab. Good job and congratulations to all the summer students!

ISMRM conference at Paris

The 26th Annual Meeting of ISMRM was held in Paris, France, from 6/16 to 6/21. Many students and researchers from SKKU attended the meeting to enjoy the summer days in the popular western European destination and network with global friends. From the lab, Ms. Seulki Yoo presented a (paper) poster as well as a short oral presentation in the Electromagnetic Properties Study group on her habenula QSM research. Dr. Lee presented an e-Poster on multi-orientation B1 mapping. The MRM editorial board meeting was held on Tuesday 6/19 where the journal's latest status was presented/discussed by Dr. Bernstein. In the MRM deputy editors' luncheon event, Peter Barker (Johns Hopkins) and Peter Jezzard (Oxford), both of whom had attended the icMRI conference in Seoul in March, appreciated their stay in Korea as being very positive. It appeared that this year's ISMRM conference was well attended and much liked by many attendees. Particularly useful were several "Member-initiated symposia" on timely topics: QSM, PNS, portable MRI, and others.

Spring semester wrap-up

The first semester of 2018 will officially end in a week, and today marks the beginning of the final exam week. Many things have happened in the past 16 weeks, in the lab, which include:
- A paper draft is (finally) written on head-tilted human 3T MRI.
- A paper on MR-based material susceptibility measurement by SH Hwang is under revision, with iMRI.
- Data taking and analysis are nearly finished with headache patients' QSM study, and a manuscript will soon be drafted by Dr. Miji Lee of SMC.
- Seulki was selected to give a 2 min presentation at the ISMRM study group next week in Paris.
- The new lab at 86310 now has major equipment pieces, including a dielectric analysis kit, a 3 axis Hall probe, and two network analyzers and a spectrum analyzer.
Let the summer begin, and may the students have fun and fruitful time in the lab before the next semester starts!

Summer Undergraduate Internship Project Options

For those students who are interested in applying for the Summer Internship at SKKU-BME, the following projects were what was carried out in the past.
2016.
(1) Using 3 Tesla human MRI, investigate the appearance of human deep brain structure (in particular, habenula) with magnetic susceptibility contrast.
(2) Make an "L" shaped phantom to measure the magnetic susceptibility of unknown liquid using magnetic resonance frequency shift.
2017.
(1) Apply susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) to visualize human habenula at 3T.
(2) Use Sim4Life simulation software to calculate electric and magnetic fields in a numerical phantom, for the purpose of testing Nachman's formula in MR-based electrical properties tomography.
Options for 2018.
(1) Continue with the "L" phantom experiment, with a custom-made, inductively coupled RF coil and investigate the temperature dependence of susceptibility.
=> Can make a journal paper
(2) Continue the Sim4Life simulation for an actual experimental phantom, to be compared with experimental determination of E- and B- vector field using MRI.
(3) Continuation of nuclear susceptibility shift, to apply it to phase-based T1 measurement.
=> "Feasibility of phase-based rapid T1 measurement using NSS"
(4) Extension of susceptibility-to-B0 forward calculation code for anisotropic susceptibility

Seminars and visits in April

Among many things that have happened in the month of April, here are the more notable ones:

• 2018 Fall semester graduate school admission fair was held on April 4-5. A few students expressed interest in GBME graduate school for research in MRI. The department-wide introduction session in the N Center was attended by about 20 prospective students.
• Dr. Lee gave a lecture on 7T MRI to medical doctors at SMC, in what was called RGR: Radiology Grand Round, on April 10th.
• Dr. Sukhoon Oh from KBSI visited the N Center on April 19th, to give a seminar to the GBME undergraduate students on 7T MRI.
• Dr. Lee visited Seoul National University on April 20th, to deliver a lecture on gradient coil technologies, invited by Prof. Jongho Lee at SNU Electrical engineering. There was a discussion with Prof. Han S-R on possibly building a new MRI machine using new high Tc superconductor technologies.
• Midterm exam for the BME Electromagnetics was held on April 25th.

ISMRM Workshop and KSMRM/icMRI in Seoul

This past week was a busy one for the Korean MRI community. The first 3 days were for a specially organized ISMRM-sponsored workshop in advance neuroimaging, held in Yeoksam-dong, Seoul. Then the next 3 days were for the annual meeting of KSMRM, also known as the International Congress on MRI (ICMRI), at a usual venue of Grand Hilton Hotel in Hongeun-dong, Seoul. Both research conferences were a success, with good turnout of registered audience and top-notch presentations from accomplished researchers. The SKKU MRI lab, MRI-CIEL, was well represented in the MR engineering sessions of ICMRI. Seon-ha Hwang made her debut! in an academic conference by smoothly delivering a 2 min pitch in the MR engineering power pitch session.

New-comers and new generation of researchers in the Korean MRI society are now being more visible in their various roles in the society. This seems to promise a continued, healthy growth of the Korean MRI community.