The workshop “Ultrahigh Field NMR and MRI: Science at Crossroads”, initiated by the scientific community and supported by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the National Institutes of Health, took place on November 12-13, 2015, in Bethesda, MD, on the NIH campus.  The meeting was held to assess the science drivers, technological challenges, prospects for achieving field strengths for NMR and MRI nearly double their current value, and strategies on how to provide ultrahigh field NMR/MRI capabilities to a national user community.  For ultrahigh field NMR spectroscopy the utilization of high temperature superconducting materials (HTS) can lead to a new generation of NMR magnets.  Similarly, for human MR it is also possible to consider the design and construction of magnets that would nearly double the field strength available today for imaging and magnetic resonance spectroscopy.  The agenda of the workshop focused on the following topics:

• Scientific Opportunities in NMR and MRI
• Future Challenges and Barriers for NMR and MRI Science in the U.S.
• Low- & High-Temperature Superconducting Magnet Technologies in MRI and NMR
• Shared Ultra-high Field NMR Facilities in Europe
• Shared High Field NMR Facilities in the U.S.

Scientific directions of strategic national importance that must rely on UHF MR to reach their realization were compiled.  The new science that will be enabled by the UHF technologies extends throughout wide swaths of physics, chemistry, materials science, biology, engineering, environmental, and biomedical sciences.  Transformational science initiatives enabled by higher magnetic field instruments span multiple disciplines, with each identified direction being of strategic interest to at least two of the three Federal funding agencies that attended the Workshop.  This conclusion is not surprising given the central role of magnetic resonance in the sciences of molecular systems as well as medical sciences.  Magnetic resonance, in its spectroscopic (NMR) and imaging (MRI) modalities is the only method that provides an integrated view of molecular structure, dynamics, and functional mechanisms, in a non-destructive and site-specific fashion, often in a single set of experiments.  The knowledge of the molecular structure and dynamics is gained at atomic resolution with NMR.  Chemistry, sub-millimeter neuroarchitecture, metabolic function and regulation in living organs are enabled by higher magnetic fields than exist today.by MRI and MRS.  MR techniques are therefore capable of probing the broadest range of systems, many of which are not approachable by other structural techniques.  The main challenge in the sciences of molecular systems is to connect the in vitro information to in vivo or in situ pictures, and NMR and MRI methods working in synergy are uniquely positioned to provide this link.  For this purpose, the highest resolution and the highest sensitivity are required across the board, necessitating the development of UHF magnet technologies and the establishment of an optimized, ancillary infrastructure.

The US scientific community has an urgent need for UHF MR technologies and infrastructure that are required to address a broad range of societally important problems of strategic national interest.  This UHF infrastructure is currently lacking in the US, leading to a progressive loss of the US scientific community leadership position in a number of scientific arenas on the international scene. 

Prospects for the development and implementation of ultrahigh fields for NMR are strong.  The principal need for the NMR community in the US is the establishment of facilities that can support the highest field NMR instrumentation with availability to national multidiscipline users.  The principal need for the MRI and MRS researchers of the nation is the technological development of MRI instruments capable of safe human subject medical science discoveries.

To address the pressing scientific needs and the emerging technological opportunities in the UHF arena, we recommend a strategic roadmap for developing sustainable UHF MR infrastructure for the nation based on the imminent prospects for high field NMR and MRI magnets.  The science needs magnetic fields that far exceed those possible with current technologies.  Attaining these fields will require a national effort in engineering and materials science to design and develop high fields, high homogeneity and (for MRI) large bore instruments; and such a project was found to be feasible by the workshop participants.  Ultrahigh field NMR and MRI instruments will need to be located in facilities that can maintain the instruments at peak operating performance, ensure that they are maximally utilized by the Nation’s large scientific user community, for a broad range of important scientific missions that were identified in this Workshop.

Last Modified: 08/02/2016
Modified by: Tatyana Polenova