The Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Research Infrastructure Programme has pledged 3.4 million euros in funding for the new National Preclinical Imaging Center (NPIC).
The facility is being established and co-funded by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) University of Medicine and Health Sciences, the University College Dublin (UCD), and SFI research center CúRAM. Its imaging infrastructure will support the development of new therapeutics and diagnostics in human disease areas such as cancer, neurology, dementia, psychiatry, cardiology, medical devices, diabetes, tissue engineering, nanomedicine, and inflammatory disease, according to the RCSI.
NPIC will serve as a national preclinical imaging resource that's open to all academic, industry, and not-for-profit researchers, the RCSI said. It will have locations in Dublin and Galway, and it will include a national preclinical MR facility, a national high-field preclinical MR/chemical imaging platform, and a high-resolution micro-CT and optical imaging laboratory.
