
VIDEO INTERVIEW
7 TESLA MRI
AT CAMPUS BIOTECH
First users impressions
THE EXPANSE
The Human Neuroscience Platform at Campus Biotech in Geneva is strengthening and expanding the panel of tools available to the whole scientific and clinical community with the arrival this year of a Siemens Healthineers MAGNETOM Terra 7 Tesla MRI scanner: https://platforms.fcbg.ch/project/7t-mri/
The 7 Tesla MRI arrived in Geneva on June 21, 2022 and is now fully operational.

In this video, Loan Mattera, MR technician at the Human Neuroscience Platform MRI facility, Patrik Vuilleumier, CIBM MRI section head at UNIGE and professor at the Swiss center for Affective Sciences, Karl Olof Lovblad, head of diagnostic and neuroradiology in the diagnostic department at HUG and Olaf Blanke, Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Cognitive Neuroprosthetics at EPFL, share their first impressions after using the new scanner available at Campus Biotech.
Watch the full video here:
A huge boost in quality
Working with a stronger mangnetic field – 7 Tesla – the images acquired are clearly superior to that of conventional MRI scanners. This allows researchers to detects smaller details and investigate thiner slice thicknesses, boosting anatomical MRI. Images can also be acquired more rapidly, therefore also benefiting also functional MRI.
A deeper insight into brain function
Conventional MRI highlights brain activity in a rather blurry and unspecific way, despite a very precise brain organization at neuronal level. Using 7 Tesla researchers can go further and investigate wich subparts of the brain – and potentially which neurons – are implicated in a specific task.
Clinical benefits
This new 7 tesla MRI scanner will also allow to better understand and treat several muskuloskeletal pathologies and neurological diseases. At the Diagnostic Department of the Geneva University Hospital (HUG), 7 Tesla MRI is believed to be a major step towards improved patient care. It has already become possible to detect at 7 Tesla small lesions that could not be detected using conventional neuroimaging, and operate or treat them them using proper medication.
Further technological development is expected
This Ultra-High-Field MRI technology will be further developed by the neuroscience community at Campus Biotech. Combining virtual reality with 7 Tesla MRI is not available anywhere in the world, and the researchers that have developed the technology for 3 Tesla MRI intend on optimizing it for 7 Tesla MRI as well, despite many constraints when working in such a strong magnetic and confined environment.
Who will benefit from this arrival?
The Siemens Healthineers MAGNETOM Terra is a new-generation Ultra-High-Field scanner which will significantly change the scientific landscape in the the lemanic area. Its arrival also reinforces the scientific partnership between the CIBM Center for Biomedical Imaging and Siemens. It is expected that the whole scientific community – researchers, neuroscientists but also clinicians from the Hopitaux Universitaires de Genève (HUG) – will benefit from the new research developed at 7 Tesla. This arrival, coupled with the strong drive towards translational development shared between the different partners of the project, will utimately benefit the whole population.
A 7 TESLA SIEMENS HEALTHINEERS MAGNETOM TERRA ON CAMPUS SINCE 2022
It is now operational. The Human Neuroscience Platform (HNP) at Campus Biotech has installed a Ultra-High-Field (UHF) 7 Tesla MRI scanner in summer 2022.
The new Siemens Healthineers MAGNETOM Terra system complements the already existing 3T Prisma MRI scanner of the HNP MRI facility.
This ambitious project is the result of an exciting collaboration between the CIBM Center for Biomedical Imaging, the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), the University of Geneva (UNIGE), the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Fondation Campus Biotech Geneva (FCBG).
