Towards widespread use of cardiac MRI using new affordable low magnetic field (0.55T) MRI scanner and AI

Aim of the PhD Project:
To develop novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques for myocardial tissue characterisation for newly introduced low magnetic field MRI scanners for optimal accuracy, precision, and reproducibility
To automate the workflow of these techniques (scan prescription, image acquisition/reconstruction, and post-processing/analysis) using AI
To evaluate the proposed methods in phantom/healthy volunteers/patients
Summary:
Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is commonly used for the clinical management of patients with cardiovascular diseases. cardiac MRI examinations are commonly performed using high magnetic field MRI scanners (1.5T/3T) which are expensive, and this has been an important limiting factor to their worldwide spread. Affordable low magnetic field (0.55T) MRI scanners have been recently developed as an alternative to break such barriers. The aim of this project will be to develop the next generation of time efficient cardiac MRI acquisition techniques for low field MRI scanners. This will involve the development of novel acquisition schemes taking advantage of specific properties of magnetic tissue properties at low field (such as shorter T1, longer T2, etc), novel acceleration techniques and AI-based reconstruction methods and to automate image analysis using AI to reduce operator dependency, analysis time, and cost.