In April 2002, with funding from our CTRF grant (see below), our 1.5 Tesla MR research scanner was upgraded from a Siemens Vision to a Siemens Sonata platform. This upgrade brings cutting-edge MR technology with a tremendous performance improvement. The new system includes 40 mT/meter gradients with slew rates of the order of 200us, and has 8 receiver channels. In August 2002 we will install the new digital broadband system, which it will permit hyperpolarized Helium-3 and Xenon-129 imaging and spectroscopy with much improved flexibility and performance.

The new 1.5 Tesla Siemens Sonata MR Scanner

UVa Abstracts Accepted for the 10th Annual Scientific Meeting of ISMRM - Honolulu, Hawaii, May 2002

In July 2001, UVA received an award of $1.8 Million from the Commonwealth of Virginia (Commonwealth Technology Research Fund).