Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Blog
Home / Updates

Future Capabilities

NIF is committed to enabling nationally significant research and meeting the unmet needs of imaging infrastructure in the Australian scientific community. NIF has awarded the following successful partners to realise essential capabilities for the research community.

Preclinical PET/3T MRI
La Trobe University and Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute
This research capability will allow cutting-edge research into metabolic and signalling changes occurring in cancer, neurodegenerative disease, cardiovascular disease, infection and inflammatory diseases to be evaluated in suitable orthotopic and transgenic models. It will also provide essential imaging capability for sophisticated translational research.

Joint investment
Alpha radioisotopes, microdosimetry and radiopharmaceuticals facility
Australia’s Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation and the University of Queensland
This investment will develop an integrated national capability targeted at alpha particle therapeutics. The application of alpha particle therapeutics develops key capabilities in production and handling of new isotopes, safety and training for broader dissemination of new technologies, preclinical capabilities allowing imaging and microdosimetry to better understand the mechanism of action as well as potential off-target effects of the new therapies. The capacity will enable clinical translation and commercial development of new innovations in the field.

High-definition, MRI-compatible EEG for 3T Clinical MRI systems
Neuroscience Research Australia/Prince of Wales Hospital
A system to enable and support local, national and international research programs that need to reliably ascertain brain state by electroencephalogram (EEG) at the same time as MR imaging information is collected. Simultaneous EEG and MRI is relevant to research into functional brain studies; sleep and sleep disorders; mental health; acute and chronic pain; and conditions involving EEG abnormalities such as epilepsy. This investment will generate outcomes and impact in three major research themes, sleep, pain and epilepsy.

MRI Guided High-Intensity Focussed Ultrasound system and compatible 3T MRI
The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
This equipment will establish the Australian High-Intensity Focussed Ultrasound (HIFU) research capability. This will be the first national research capability for ultrasonographic brain lesioning, providing image-guided minimally-invasive personalised neurosurgery. It will enable research teams to develop and translate into the healthcare sector new minimally-invasive HIFU-based treatments for Australians with brain disorders. It will discover, improve and validate therapeutic deep brain ablation methods for more effective treatment of tremor, epilepsy and a range of other neurological conditions.

Plant-Soil Systems imaging capability
The University of Melbourne
An investment that will establish a new national capability in Functional Plant Imaging. This capability, through expertise in plant sciences and imaging technologies nationally and internationally, will address questions about how plants function in today’s and future dynamically changing climates. NIF imaging technologies will support research into the challenges of food security and environmental sustainability for Australian agriculture and natural landscapes, in areas such as water, salinity, nitrogen and phosphorus. This will lay the foundations for Australia to document the impact of production (yield), productivity (yield per resource) and quality (value) of agriculture outputs.

Macquarie University Node membership and 3T MRI
Macquarie University
This investment will provide national access to medical and research imaging capabilities within an integrated academic health sciences and private healthcare setting and provide a seamless experience for research participants and researcher access to high-quality imaging datasets (single- and multi-modal) and relevant clinical information. Establishing a NIF node at Macquarie University will embed an integrated academic health sciences centre and will incorporate medical imaging (a full medical imaging suite including x-ray, CT, MRI, PET) located within Macquarie University Hospital (MUH) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) and related electrophysiological recording technologies located within the Australian Hearing Hub. The MEG facility at Macquarie is the only paediatric MEG in Australia which is particularly suited for studies of children who have received Cochlear implants and will strongly complement the MEG capability at Swinburne Node of NIF.

University of Newcastle Node membership
University of Newcastle
This capability will be the first NIF node in regional Australia, with unique links to regional and rural communities, engagement with Aboriginal researchers and communities, which are underpinned by advanced bioinformatics that supports imaging research nationally. The Hunter Medical Research Institute Imaging Centre (HMRI-IC) plays a unique role in the Australian imaging landscape, being regionally located and providing health outcomes directly for regional and rural Australia. It facilitates important translational imaging research and supports a volume of high-end imaging research, supporting discovery and translational science as well as clinical trials. This facility supports translational projects in cancer, dementia, psychosis, inflammatory diseases and cardiorespiratory disease; basic discovery research; and technical developments in sequence optimization and implementation.

NIF’s Professor Fernando Calamante elected President of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine

National Facility of Imaging’s (NIF) Co-Director of the University of Sydney/ANSTO joint node, Professor Fernando Calamante, has been elected President of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM). ISMRM draws on a multidisciplinary membership of over 9,000 clinicians, physicists, engineers, biochemists, and technologists who contribute to discovery, innovation and clinical translation in magnetic resonance.

Prof Fernando Calamante

Professor Calamante’s research is at the forefront of his field and includes the development of novel methods for Diffusion MRI, Perfusion MRI and brain connectivity, and their applications to neurology and neuroscience. He has gained international recognition for his MRI methods including his contribution to the MRtrix software for Diffusion MRI analysis, which is considered one of the most widely adopted tools in the field.

“I feel greatly honoured to have been elected to this role. The ISMRM has played such an important part of my research career and has been the source of so many collaborations and inspiration to my research; it is a real privilege to be able to play my part in contributing to ensuring the ISMRM continues to deliver its vision. These are challenging times, and it will be interesting to see how Societies such as ours react, adapt and evolve in the face of the challenges COVID has given us.” Professor Calamante said.

Professor Calamante is the first researcher from outside Europe or North America to be elected as ISMRM President.

 “It is a great milestone for the ISMRM, and testimony of its international nature and diversity. Having come originally from Argentina and now living in Australia for the last 16 years, I feel I can fly the international flag as ISMRM President. As the first ‘rest of the world’ President, I will do my best to increase the presence of the ISMRM in under-represented regions,” Professor Calamante said.

Professor Calamante is the Director of Sydney Imaging, Core Research Facility at the University of Sydney and Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering.

NIF Chief Executive Officer, Professor Graham Galloway said he was delighted that Professor Calamante was elected ISMRM president and has been recognised for his expertise in magnetic resonance. ISMRM is recognised by the MR community as the premiere organisation for sharing of discovery and applications and driving the development of MR technology. It brings together basic scientists, engineers, clinicians and industry.  Professor Calamante’s election demonstrates that NIF is at the forefront of leading-edge imaging instrumentation and expertise in imaging technology.

NIF is helping Inflazome in the development of drugs for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease

Inflazome Ltd., a biotech start-up company founded in 2016, has been focusing on development of oral NLRP3 inflammasome inhibitors to address unmet clinical needs in a wide variety of inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases. Inflazome was acquired in 2020 by Roche for EUR 380 million, highlighting the value of translational research activities.

Studies undertaken at the QLD Node of NIF have assisted the understanding of Inflazome’s portfolio of inflammasome inhibitors and helped drug candidates created by Inflazome proceed to clinical trials. Preclinical PET/MR, PET/CT, and radiotracer production were used to test specific critical components of the innate immune system in animal models of Parkinson’s disease and neuroinflammation.
These works were undertaken as a research collaboration led by Prof Matt Cooper from Inflazome with animal models provided by Prof Trent Woodruff and Dr Eduardo Albornoz from The School of Biomedical Science at The University of Queensland. Preclinical Imaging was performed by Dr Karine Mardon and Dr Gary Cowin from the QLD NIF Node at The Centre for Advanced Imaging.

This story was contributed by the QLD NIF Node. For more information, please contact Dr Karine Mardon or Dr Gary Cowin

Drawing of an Inflammasome. Image used with permission from Prof. Kate Schroder, IMB, University of Queensland

COVID-19 Research at LARIF: Using fluoroscopy for lung ventilation analysis

LARIF has teamed up with Australian biomedical company, 4DMedical, and University of Adelaide scientists Associate Professor David Parsons and Dr Martin Donnelly to address the COVID-19 crisis, through testing a novel ventilator, the now patented 4DMedical ‘XV technology’, and a large animal model of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS).

Associate Professor David Parsons and Dr Martin Donnelly in the LARIF Cath Lab

The NCRIS-enabled facilities and expertise at the Large Animal Research and Imaging Facility (LARIF) NIF Node, located in the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), were utilised by a consortium of doctors, engineers, and medical researchers as part of the Australian Lung Health Initiative (ALHI).

Read More

PET for Plants

Clinical PET/CT scanners deliver non-invasive, precise anatomical and functional imaging of the human body. Did you know the same systems have been used to investigate plants?

A team of cross-disciplinary researchers at the University of Melbourne, University of Adelaide, and the University of British Columbia have teamed up to demonstrate the utility of clinical PET/CT scanners to image plants.

Read More

Open-Field PET

Understanding the molecular mechanisms that regulate behaviour, memory, and reward-based learning has challenged neuroscientists for decades. Until recently, research into these fundamental mechanisms in the brain has relied on invasive or confounding methodologies, limiting studies of neurological disorders that affect behaviour and learning, such as depression, age-related neurodegeneration, and addiction.

Read More

Changes in the brain related to parenthood

Parents can tell you that having kids changes your life. Recent studies by the Cognitive Neuroimaging Team at Monash Biomedical Imaging have shown just how deep those changes go by analysing brain structure in older adults that have had children. Parenthood was shown to cause life-long changes in both mothers and fathers, with a follow-up study suggesting that motherhood can protect the ageing maternal brain.

Read More
Privacy Settings
Youtube
Vimeo
Google Maps
Save
We use cookies to enhance your experience while using our website. To learn more about the cookies we use and the data we collect, please check our Privacy Policy .
I Accept