Prof. Dr. Jürgen Hennig gives Hounsfield Memorial Lecture

 

The chemist and medical physicist, is internationally renowned for his work as one of the pioneers of Magnetic Resonance Imaging for clinical diagnostics. Hennig is an alumnus of the Imperial College. He also studied at the universities of Stuttgart, Munich and Freiburg, where he currently works as Scientific Director of the Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Chairman of the Magnetic Resonance Development and Application Center. His awards include the Biosciences and Medicine Max Planck Research Award (2003), the highest scientific award of Taiwan - Tsung Ming Tu Award (2010), and an Einstein professorship from the Chinese Academy of Science (2011).

 

 

 

 

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has been around for more than 30 years but is still undergoing rapid development. This progress is being driven by innovative technologies as well as new challenges and opportunities arising from the rapid development in biomedical research. MRI not only produces good images, but it also enables non-invasive measurement and visualization of metabolic, microstructural, functional and physiological processes. These offer the potential for studying the multiple parameters associated with normal and disease processes, with applications to areas of medical research including neuroscience, cardiology and metabolic disease.

 

Multiparametric MRI imaging provides an ideal and necessary supplement to genetic profiling and personalized medicine. In conjunction with other imaging techniques, MRI adds a spatiotemporal dimension to the spatially non-specific information provided by genetics. The importance of this can be seen through analysing the genetic heterogeneity of tumors, and MRI allows the detailed study of changes in phenotype caused by genetic modifications in animal models. The richness of phenotype modifications caused by even very isolated genetic changes is ample demonstration that the interrelation of molecular factors with the systemic level is much more than a simple one-to-one correspondence.

 

The clever and creative use of new nano- and microtechnologies has already led to unprecedented improvements in imaging quality and imaging speed as well as new concepts in spatial encoding and the widespread use of high power graphical processor units. The introduction of new technologies is expected to lead to incremental improvements in current approaches to MRI, as well as new applications. Although MRI has come a long way since its early stages, it still has far to go.

 

For further information, please visit: http://www.hounsfieldlecture.org