On the 1st August 2018, prof. Agnieszka Dobrzyń, director of the Nencki Institute, and Joanna Miłachowska, Executive Board Member of Siemens Healthineers, have signed a Master Research Agreement. The alliance concerns the use of a magnetic resonance scanner for research projects being conducted in Laboratory of Brain Imaging, headed by dr hab. Artur Marchewka, prof. IBD. The confidentiality and collaboration rules set within the signed agreement, allow the Nencki Institute to use the technologies of Siemens Healthineers, which are not yet commercially available, for research and implementation projects.

The Laboratory of Brain Imaging (LOBI, http://lobi.nencki.gov.pl/), is one of the core facilities at the Nencki Institute. LOBI provides access to state-of-the-art research support and technologies for internal and external scientists. Technologies used at LOBI include: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), spectroscopy (MRS), electroencephalography (EEG - including EEG-fMRI simultaneous recordings), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and computational image analysis. Research at LOBI has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of the neural processes responsible for cross-modal neuroplasticity in healthy and deaf people, neuronal mechanisms of consciousness, processing of emotionally charged information in healthy and subclinical populations, as well as analytic approaches for multisite MRI data of developmental and neurological disorders. This collaboration will provide great improvement in spatial and temporal resolution of the sequences, and thus, enables to gather more information in a limited period of study. The Institute will also become a member of collaboration platform with other partner facilities under the umbrella of Siemens Healthineers.

Siemens Healthineers enables healthcare providers worldwide to increase value, by empowering them on their journey towards expanding precision medicine, transforming care delivery, improving patient experience, and digitalizing healthcare. A leader in medical technology, Siemens Healthineers is constantly innovating its portfolio of products and services in its core areas of diagnostic and therapeutic imaging, and in laboratory diagnostics and molecular medicine. Siemens Healthineers is also actively developing its digital health services and enterprise services. More information is available at www.siemens-healthineers.com.

The agreement will implement a framework for the research collaboration already taking place for specific projects e.g. concentration of neurotransmitters in dyslexia (Bartosz Kossowski), fMRI of neuronal activation in schizophrenia (dr Łukasz Okruszek, IP PAN), neuronal activation during Braille numbers processing (dr hab. Marcin Szwed, UJ). The undersigned agreement tightens the cooperation between the parties. The confidentiality and collaboration rules set within the signed agreement, allow the Nencki Institute using the technologies of Siemens Healthineers, which not yet commercially available for research and implementation projects.

The Siemens Healthineers will support current and upcoming research projects of the Institute, by providing access to knowledge of the development departments, along with the experience of more than 800 research partners all over the World.