US giant teams up with Matai research group

THE MATAI WHANAU: Matai Research team members, from left, Dr Daniel Cornfield, Leigh Potter, Jeanette Lepper, Dr Patrick McHugh, Dr Samantha Holdsworth and Tony Stehlin look forward to the installation of General Electric Healthcare’s 3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging system MRI in a modular unit (inset) on Gisborne Hospital grounds. Pictures supplied

A partnership between Gisborne-based medical imaging group Matai Research and General Electric Healthcare (GEH) means the American company will provide Matai with a state-of-the-art MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine, and one of its own scientists.

GEH’s 3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging system, and a modular unit to house it, are expected to arrive in July and will be based on Gisborne Hospital grounds. GEH will install the MRI system and provide advanced hardware and software.

Developed in collaboration with global research institutions, the software is designed for neurological, cardiac and cancer research, and clinical work.

“It’s a platform package with some of the best hardware there is, software that drives the scanner and an in-kind contribution of scientists and other support,” says Matai chief executive and Auckland University senior lecturer Dr Samantha Holdsworth.

“We’re bringing in high tech equipment to an area that would not normally get this,” she said.

After a month of testing and training the system will go live in September.

GE machines were installed at Stanford University where Dr Holdsworth worked for 11 years.

“Stanford had a symbiotic relationship with GE in which they would innovate technology. GE was inspired by our vision and the team came in with a great offer.”

The new MRI system will use breakthrough technology developed by Dr Holdsworth and collaborators. This technology includes amplified MRI which magnifies tiny motions of the brain as the heart beats.

The high-end, advanced imagery of the brain, heart and musculoskeletal system provides a platform from which Matai’s researchers can develop new methods to diagnose disease, Dr Holdsworth said.

The new MRI uses various techniques to see inside the body. These are structural, which outline the shapes and sizes of the brain’s various regions, and physiological, which shows the brain’s network of blood flow.

MRI can also help highlight the brain’s functional operation, where parts of the brain ‘light up’ to show cognitive activity. Dynamic MRI, which has been used for a long time to visualise the heartbeat, presents a 3D image of tiny movement in the brain.

Patient comfort has also been enhanced. Patients are usually wrapped in a “coil” to get images of the body but Matai Research will use a new lightweight blanket that is sewn through with “air coils”. These coils also give a more advanced signal than the blanket’s weightier predecessor.

Wrapped in the lightweight blanket the patient is slid into the “dough-nut”, the machine’s cylindrical tube, where he or she will find it is not as noisy as earlier models.

“There are two things that can make the patient experience better,” says Dr Holdsworth.

“You can watch a movie while in the scanner and you could use ‘silent MRI’ which is not much noisier than a printer.”

Along with supplying equipment, and a scientist, GE is committed to on-the- ground research, scientific and engineering support that focuses on new MRI technologies, funding and support for educational initiatives, and health-related research.

“The combination of leading technology and joint research teams will help enable Matai to become a leading centre for medical imaging research,” Dr Holdsworth said.

Matai also aims to help catalyse research programmes around other neurological diseases, early biomarkers of heart disease, metabolic disease, musculoskeletal injury, cancer, and studies that aim at early diagnosis of disease and a better understanding of wellbeing.

Matai Research has access to technologies that are not even in production yet, says chief operating officer Leigh Potter.

“GE is passionate about getting behind what we are doing

“They wanted to be part of the Matai whanau.”