This year's ISMRM abstract announcement came a week earlier than usual. In my count, about 143 x 36 = 5148 abstracts were accepted, as compared to 141 x 38= 5358 last year. I see submission numbers going beyond 8600 so the acceptance rate is perhaps about 60%, quite low compared to the past. The question of fairness and transparency naturally arises as more people get rejection -- prominently missing any explanation. When Dr. Derek Jones, now president of ISMRM, visited us last year I did ask about providing some kind of scores or justification for abstract decisions. He was under impression that rejected ones are of obvious low quality, and the question may be more on oral vs posters. I think this position needs re-visiting, as (i) the field is getting ever more diversified, making judgement of others' work difficult, and (ii) unlike APS, for example, ISMRM abstract submission requires considerable manual work (on formatting) so the rejected authors deserve some sort of feedback at the minimum.
Personally, two first-authored abstracts were accepted for digital posters as requested. They both involve eddy current. Video recording should happen in the next several weeks. More on that part later!
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.]
Embodying diversity and integrity,
Living impact and not just tallying it,
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)[Correction: 70cm is the magnet bore according to a 2025 publication], but human imaging is not out of the question if paired with an appropriate insert gradient coil.
This comparison figure from the Minnesota workshop says it all. On one side, Prof. Park (upper image) continues to break ground with new data, and moves DIANA forward with full sincerity, humility, and transparency of a mature scientist; while on the other side, the petty old man (not shown here) is on a negative campaign to undermine the other's credibility with not only malice and selfish intent but also cowardice of hiding behind big names (such as shown here, Dr. Bandettini). I know full well the intention of both sides. Apart from science, this battle cannot be won by the petty old man on a purely moral ground.
