End-of-year thank you from NIF CEO Wojtek Goscinski

Dear NIF community

As 2025 comes to an end, I’d like to reflect on the key achievements of the year for the National Imaging Facility (NIF), and thank you for your participation and support.

It has been a year of remarkable scientific and medical impact, made possible by our community of outstanding experts, advanced instruments and exceptional research users.

In 2026, we welcome Emeritus Professor Annabelle Duncan as our new NIF Governing Board Chair. Her leadership and commitment to research excellence will guide us in the next phase of NIF’s work.

I want to express deep gratitude to Professor Margaret Harding for her stewardship during her term, contributions that laid strong foundations for our future. During her tenure, NIF strengthened its governance, delivered a new national strategy aligned with national priorities, and secured substantial investment and leverage across our network.

We also extend sincere thanks to Dr Erol Harvey for his service on the Board, and warmly welcome Dr Elane Zelcer who joined mid-year.

2025 delivered some truly inspiring research outcomes that highlight the power of NIF’s national network.

NIF and other NCRIS capabilities contributed to the amazing Australian journey of an ovarian cancer breakthrough that has now entered human trials; we helped contribute to a huge MRI study that collected 762 leg scans over 6 years to benefit children with cerebral palsy; our long-term NIF user and collaborator AdvanCell secured $112m in funding to advance targeted alpha therapy for metastatic prostate cancer; our MRI scans have helped precision medicine break postcode and time barriers for people living with epilepsy; NIF’s expertise enabled full-body muscle-health MRI scans that power AI models of progression for muscular dystrophy patients; instrumental translational imaging has enabled a new cancer nanotracer clinical trial; specialists and imaging experts have created “immediate, dramatic” tremor results from a new incision-free MRI-guided treatment; leveraging total body PET technology, incredible new protocols led to a pregnant patient’s PET/CT scan with safety and diagnostic usefulness; and our MRI and PET imaging assisted the first TGA approval of a dementia treatment drug for Australia.

These achievements show the power of NIF’s national network and the value of imaging from discovery to real-world health impact.

This year, our annual scientific meeting in Adelaide stood out as a demonstration of what our community can achieve. From preclinical imaging to clinical translation and data-infrastructure efforts, the diversity and ambition of NIF-enabled research was displayed.

We were also honoured to host the annual foundingGIDE Community Event in Brisbane, bringing together imaging researchers, data scientists and infrastructure providers from around 30 countries to build a coordinated global image-data ecosystem.

Maintaining cutting-edge infrastructure and networks of expertise remain central to NIF’s mission, and 2025 saw major advancements.

NIF works to keep Australia at the forefront of biomedical imaging technology and supporting the translational pipeline. This year saw launches of one of the most advanced MRI scanners in Victoria at Monash Biomedical Imaging; funding for WANIF’s new cyclotron facility and radiochemistry laboratory; upgraded preclinical MRI and radiochemistry capabilities launched at the UNSW Biological Resource Imaging Laboratory; a new, powerful 3T MRI scanner launched at the University of Sydney; and a first-in-the-world new total body PET/CT scanner at Peter Mac, joining NIF’s national network.

We look forward to further announcements in 2026.

None of this would be possible without the efforts of our imaging scientists, radiochemists, data scientists, project managers, nurses, clinical trial experts, and everyone across NIF who contributes to our success.

To the Partners and their staff, Node Directors, Fellows and users: thank you for your dedication, commitment and outstanding scientific contributions.

As always, I thank the Central team for their hard work advancing NIF’s goals.

In 2026, we will continue to build on these solid foundations, keeping our infrastructure cutting-edge, accelerating translational research, and growing national and international collaborations.

I wish every member of the NIF community a holiday season filled with rest and joy, and I am excited to see what we will achieve together in the year ahead.

Kind regards
Prof Wojtek Goscinski (CEO) and the NIF Central team