"We have a long and important history of partnering with GE Healthcare," said George Wodicka, professor and head of Purdue's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering. "We wanted a facility that could serve the community and provide additional resources for researchers. The MRI center, known as InnerVision West, provides both, as it will be used during the day for patientcare and used for research at night and on the weekends."

Previous work on MRI in the 1990s was performed by a team lead by Dr. Joe Bourland, one of the founders of biomedical engineering at Purdue. This research, which started as a partnership between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), grew into a full industry partnership when GE Healthcare came onboard. At that time, GE provided a custom-built MRI coil for studies, as well as a full-scale mobile unit for research. These studies focused on examining safety issues with MRI and as a result, GE was able to provide improved MRI systems that greatly reduced the time required for patients, while improving diagnostic imaging capabilities.

In addition to the work done by Bourland's team, other work continues on various safety aspects -- including safety of other implantable medical devices, such as pacemakers, during MRI studies. Research by Professor John Nyenhuis makes use of donated imaging equipment from GE to perform these and other imaging research studies.

"There is enormous latent potential in the relationship between Purdue and GE, and we are working to tap into that potential," notes Professor Charles Bouman, Co-Director of the new facility. "As it turns out, Purdue is GE's number one source of university talent, so as an organization, GE already has great ties to Purdue, but we are working to determine how Purdue's research capacity can help give GE a competitive edge, and how GE's cutting edge businesses can help Purdue researchers better understand emerging issues in high impact research problems."

"For example, we have been working with GE Healthcare researchers over the past 6 years to develop the next generation of reconstruction algorithm for CT scanners such as the GE Lightspeed scanner. This research has already produced four patents, and in a soon-to-be-release publication we have demonstrated that these new reconstruction algorithms can reduce X-ray dosage by a factor of 3 to 4, while simultaneously increasing resolution by a factor of approximately 2."

The Purdue connection with GE extends beyond just research. The MR Global Business at GE has a long history of Purdue alumni, including two former General Managers --- John Chiminski and Dennis Cooke -- who are both Purdue alumni.

Professor Tom Talavage, Co-Director of the MRI facility states "In addition to our projects related to coil design/tuning and acoustic noise suppression, having this relationship will greatly enhance our ability to develop novel MR imaging sequences and applications. In these more general cases, we will have greater access to software and hardware details that allow us to optimize the image acquisition and image reconstruction processes."

"From a personal perspective, the expanded relationship between GE Healthcare and Purdue provides an opportunity to cement already strong relationships that I have developed while working with GE MRI systems since 1994, including many interactions with MR Engineering and the Applied Science Laboratory in Waukesha, WI."

Talavage notes "The presence of an MRI that is available to the Purdue research community will provide a mechanism by which many inter-disciplinary collaborations will be initiated. We have interested faculty members from more than 15 departments who will be working to incorporate MRI research into their programs. These projects will represent an expansion of the overall research base for the University, increasing the range of meaningful funding opportunities and industrial interactions that may take place.

Some of the procedures that the 3T-MRI system will particularly benefit include magnetic resonance angiography; neurological/brain imaging; spine studies; orthopedic, including elbow, wrist, hip, knee, foot and ankle; prostate; pelvis; abdominal; spectroscopy; brain fiber tracking; and functional neuroimaging. The system can capture images with a level of detail, clarity, and speed not previously possible in the area.

A symposium will be held this afternoon (November 2) to expand upon some of these possibilities. The speakers and topics will include:

MRI at Purdue: A Vision for the Future
Charlie Bouman
Co-Director, Purdue MRI Facility
Purdue University

Clinical Impact of MRI: 3T in West Lafayette
John Fiederlein
Chief Radiologist
InnerVision

Expanding the Clinical Frontiers of MRI
Jim Davis
General Manager, Global MR Business
General Electric Healthcare

Better Images of the Thinking Brain: The RF Rx for Magnetic Susceptibility
Doug Noll
Professor and Interim Chair of Biomedical Engineering
Professor of Radiology
Co-Director, Functional MRI Laboratory
University of Michigan

Fast Imaging with Sparse Sampling
Zhi-Pei Liang
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Illinois

Human Neuroscience and the Study of Language
Steve Small
Professor of Neurology and Psychology
University of Chicago