GE Healthcare is collaborating with Tesla Engineering of West Sussex, U.K., on the production of 7-tesla MRI magnets.
The ultrahigh-field magnets will be used in MRI scanners to explore conditions ranging from cancer and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to brain trauma, epilepsy, and autism.
GE has installed a Discovery MR 950 7-tesla scanner at the Imago7 Research Foundation in Italy under the direction of Dr. Michela Tosetti. The researchers have been using the scanner to look for markers of neurodegenerative diseases and to study epilepsy, and they also plan to examine pediatric brain tumors. The scanner is still an investigational device and is not yet cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
In an article published by the company, GE asserted that the magnet is almost as strong as the 8-tesla magnets guiding beams of high-energy particles inside the European Council for Nuclear Research's Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.
Baldev Ahluwalia, GE's MR manager, said the 7-tesla scanner could also help the company's engineers and their research collaborators optimize existing 1.5- and 3-tesla scanners.
