Blog Overview

Site Campus Biotech of SIP West EPFL Inaugurates 7T MRI Scanner

30.6.22
Author: Campus Biotech

The Human Neuroscience Platform at Campus Biotech in Geneva, site of SIP West EPFL is strengthening and expanding the panel of tools available to the whole scientific and clinical community with the arrival this year of a Siemens Healthineers MAGNETOM Terra 7T MRI scanner on 21st June 2022.

Compared to conventional MRI, 7 Tesla MRI enables a significant boost in signal that can be used in order to improve image coverage, temporal and/or spatial resolution, or a combination of these. While structural MRI will exhibit finer details and/or reduced acquisition time, functional MRI will also benefit from an additional boost due to the increased contrast based on blood oxygenation (BOLD) at high field.

The scanner itself, a Siemens Healthineers 7 Tesla MAGNETOM Terra system, will be a state-of-the-art new-generation ultra-high field system. This MRI will enable both single-channel clinical mode dedicated to neuro and orthopaedic applications, as well as a research mode capable of unleashing the latest technological breakthroughs developed by our local scientists, Siemens Healthineers on-site scientists and the whole UHF MRI community.

The New 7T MRI Scanner will be fully integrated into the existing MRI facility of the FCBG Human Neuroscience Platform (HNP) located at Campus Biotech. Much like its neighbour – the very busy 3T Siemens Healthineers MAGNETOM Prisma system, it will be accessible to all users from academic or clinical background, but also companies and start-ups.

It is expected that the whole scientific community – researchers, neuroscientists but also clinicians from the Hopitaux Universitaires de Genève (HUG) – will benefit from the new research developed at 7 Tesla. This arrival, coupled with the strong drive towards translational development shared between the different partners of the project, will utimately benefit the whole population.