Today, the University of New South Wales launched an advanced MRI scanner in Sydney, adding significant new capability to Australia’s national human imaging network for discovery, translational research and clinical trials.
Hosted by UNSW’s human imaging research core facility, Research Imaging NSW (RINSW) within the Prince of Wales Hospital, the new Siemens Healthineers MAGNETOM Cima.X Fit 3T MRI will enable faster MRI examinations and more detailed imaging than previously possible.
The Cima.X Fit upgrade was funded through a $2.5 million investment by UNSW’s Division of Research and Enterprise.
New MRI instrument provides deeper insights into health and disease
At RINSW, cancer patients participating in clinical trials are routinely scanned: “Personalised and advanced treatment regimens clearly benefit from advanced imaging capabilities. Ultimately, we hope this imaging will allow us to assess the effectiveness of treatment earlier,” says Professor Claudia Hillenbrand, RINSW Director.
“The exceptionally strong gradients of the Cima.X Fit system allow us to capture structural and functional information about the brain in greater detail, while also opening up opportunities for advanced imaging of other organs, including the heart,” Prof Hillenbrand says.
The new technology allows researchers to optimise and shorten scan protocols, improving comfort for research participants and patients, and making longer or more complex studies easier to tolerate.
The Cima.X will help clinicians and researchers investigate how the healthy brain functions, what changes in brain diseases and disorders, and where new drugs and therapies might act.
The RINSW team will soon also be able to map sodium concentrations in the brain, providing a different window into disease induced changes in brain tissue that may not yet be detectable with conventional hydrogen MRI.
RINSW aims to provide healthier lives by supporting research into basic neurological and behavioural functions, mental illness, neurological disorders, ageing, delirium and dementia, focal epilepsy, cystic fibrosis, blood disorders, oncology and cancer predisposition syndromes.
Scanner joins NIF’s national network to accelerate clinical trials and research
Prof Hillenbrand says one of the most exciting aspect of the upgrade is linking the new RINSW instrument into NIF’s national Human MR network.
“We can now share protocols and run multi-site trials and research studies, using the same cutting-edge scanner and platform as four other sites. That is the real strength of being part of NIF’s national network.”
As part of NIF’s MR network, UNSW will lead efforts to harmonise scanner protocols across Australia, helping researchers generate and combine consistent, comparable imaging data from multiple sites. This will make it easier to draw on NIF’s national capabilities and conduct large-scale clinical trials and research studies.
Launch celebrates RINSW’s quiet opening and remarkable journey
Recounting RINSW’s beginnings, Prof Hillenbrand recalls “opening the doors” in late 2019. Soon afterwards, plans were developed for a new building to house a second, dedicated research MRI scanner, with construction completed and the scanner installed by August 2020.
A formal opening and launch had been planned but was postponed because of COVID-19. At that time, the instruments available for research at that time were a Siemens MAGNETOM Vida 3T scanner, shared with the Medical Imaging Department at Prince of Wales Hospital, and a dedicated Siemens MAGNETOM Prisma 3T scanner, which has now been upgraded.
“This event is particularly special because, in many ways, it is the launch we never had,” says Prof Hillenbrand. “We are celebrating both our new Cima.X Fit MRI platform and how far RINSW has come since 2019.”
The RINSW facility is fully integrated into the clinical environment of the Prince of Wales Hospital. Its unique infrastructure, operational model and hospital location enable RINSW to support both paediatric and adult participants and patients, advancing clinical research and basic science through advanced imaging.
“Over the past seven years, our team has had the privilege of working with many outstanding researchers, clinicians, industry partners and collaborators. Their contributions, together with our close partnership with Prince of Wales Hospital, have been instrumental in making RINSW what it is today. We are deeply grateful to them all,” says Prof Hillenbrand.
“In particular, we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to former PVC-RI Prof Grainne Moran, whose vision and leadership and unwavering commitment to research infrastructure and collaboration were instrumental in shaping RINSW and the broader research culture at UNSW,“ she further notes.
Celebrating innovation continues: the MR Research Symposium
The Cima.X launch will be followed by a two-day MR Research Symposium and User Meeting jointly hosted by RINSW and the Siemens Healthineers Australia and New Zealand Scientific Team.
Prof Parmjot Bairn (Chief Medical Officer, UNSW Medicine & Health) will speak at the start of the day, along with Prof Hillenbrand, Dr Martin Mackertich (Director of Clinical Services, Prince of Wales Hospital) and NIF CEO Prof Wojtek Gocinski.
Following the launch, Prof Mark Griswold (Case Western Reserve University, United States) – a pioneer in parallel imaging and MR fingerprinting – will deliver the keynote lecture on “MRI’s Next Horizon: From Fingerprinting to Clinical Impact”.
His presentation will explore how MR fingerprinting has progressed from an innovative research technique towards clinical applications, including in in oncology and dementia.
The symposium will bring together the MR imaging research community for scientific exchange, networking and discussions of the latest advances in MRI research, innovation and clincal translation.
The new Cima.X Fit is technically an upgrade of RINSW’s existing MRI system, but it is almost an entirely new scanner. Only the cryostat, which contains the superconducting magnet, remains from the previous system.
RINSW brings together imaging scientists, radiographers and radiologists who work to translate advances in imaging into clinical research and applications. The team provides accessible imaging infrastructure for research studies and clinical trials, supporting projects from planning through to data acquisition, processing and analysis.
RINSW is also a core imaging site in the Asia-Pacific Motor Neuron Disease Imaging Initiative, led by Chief Investigator Dr Sicong Tu. Additionally, the MRI upgrade will play a key role in the newly announced National MND Data Nexus, funded by a FightMND Research Infrastructure grant awarded to Dr Tu. By following participants over time and collecting comparable MRI scans across centres, the initiative investigates how MND changes the brain and aims to identify quantitative imaging measures that could help clinicians understand disease progression.