3 and 7 Tesla

MR Center of Excellence
Medical University of Vienna, Austria

Infrastructure at the MR Center of Excellence

Assignment
The MRCE was assigned to the Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-Guided Therapy (Univ. Klinik f. Radiodiagnostik) in 2009.

Premises
The original, wooden building (BT32), constructed in 1987, houses two 3T research system. After the neighbouring building (BT 88) was demolished in June 2007, a new building was constructed to house the 7 T whole-body system (now BT 32.1). The new building was financed by the investment agreement (‘paktierte Investition’) between AKH and MUW. The old premises, BT 32, and the new building, BT 32.1, have been assigned to the MR Center of Excellence, and are to be used for high field MR research.

Equipment
The following scanners are currently in operation at MRCE: two 3 T systems (Siemens) and one 7 T whole-body system (Siemens). All systems are equipped with numerous (multi-nuclear) volume and surface coils. Therefore a large number of experiments can be performed based on 1H, 13C, 23Na or 31P.  More coils will be available due to scientific & industrial collaborations as well as our own rf-lab (see below).

3 Tesla Siemens PrismaFit
The 3 Tesla Trio scanner was upgraded to a Prisma system in May 2016
as part of the "Hochschulraumstrukturmittelprojekt". It is equipped
with a comprehensive range of coils and has multi-nuclear
capabilities.

7 Tesla Siemens Magnetom
The 7 T Siemens whole-body system (Magnetom, Siemens Healthcare, GE + A) was installed in March 2008, and started operation in June 2008 (phantom and preparatory measurements). Human subject measurements started on the 1st of August 2008 and the first patient measurement took place on the 20th of November 2008. The first contrast agent study was carried out on the 18th of February 2009. The 7T system is equipped with 32 receive channels, multi-nuclei capabilities, and a strong microgradient system (9 cm,750 mT/m).