The University of Iowa is requesting funds to support the purchase of a state-of-the-art Siemens seven Tesla whole body MRI system to support the research efforts of 33 funded NIH investigators from five colleges (Medicine, Engineering, Public Health, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Business) with 40 NIH grants. This group of researchers has a wide range of interests including: functional brain mapping, high-resolution anatomical imaging of the brain, spectroscopy of the brain, pH dynamics, orthopedic imaging, evaluation of tumor response to treatment, and cardiovascular imaging. This system would be the only whole body ultra-high field (>3T) MRI scanner on campus or within 200 miles. The scanner will be located within a new 200,000 square foot, $130 million, research building located on the medical campus. This facility will house four new human scanner bays and nine animal imaging bays. The human imaging facilities will include three exam/changing rooms, an electronics shop, image processing and visualization laboratories. The proposed 7T scanner will significantly advance the research efforts at the University of Iowa by allowing higher spatial resolution images to be acquired, increased SNR, faster scan times, increased spectral resolution for spectroscopic studies, and 23Na images to be acquired. The proposed scanner is state of the art and includes 1) 128 receive and 8 transmit channels;2) broad band receiver;3) high performance gradients;4) active shielding;and 5) multi-nuclear coils. The MR Research Facility that currently administers existing 1.5T and 3T whole body research systems will manage the proposed 7T scanner. Significant technical expertise exists at the University of Iowa to take full advantage of this scanner and to develop new novel imaging sequences. In addition, the University of Iowa has committed to hiring a new faculty member with expertise in coil design and development. A board-certified MR technologist will also be hired to run this system. Revenues to support other facility expenses will come from user fees. The MR Research Facility already has an internal and external advisory board that will continue in this capacity and will integrate the proposed 7T scanner. The MR research facility is under the Iowa Institute of Biomedical Imaging (IIBI) and is integrated into the University of Iowa's Clinical and Translation Science Award (CTSA) and the NCI funded cancer center. The University of Iowa already has established a Master Research Agreement with Siemens and has developed collaborative efforts for many of the proposed projects included in this application.
A 7T whole body MRI scanner will facilitate the research of 33 NIH funded investigators at the University of Iowa. Their work will be enhanced by the finer detail available from the images. This instrument will also allow new imaging methods to be used that currently are not available at lower field strengths.
