image: the opening ceremony and commemorative international symposium for the MRI Precision Imaging Research Center at the Korea University Mediscience Park.
Credit: KU Medicine
On April 14, Korea University's College of Medicine held the opening ceremony and commemorative international symposium for the MRI Precision Imaging Research Center at the Korea University Mediscience Park.
Through this event, the College of Medicine officially opened the first MRI Precision Imaging Research Center that is solely dedicated to medical research among domestic medical colleges. It became an opportunity for them to enhance their international cooperation in the advanced brain imaging research field.
The MRI Precision Imaging Research Center is expected to become one of the five core institutions of the Korea University Mediscience Park, along with the Vaccine Innovation Center, which was the first private medical institution of Korea University; the Biosafety Center, the largest private medical institution; the Korea University College of Medicine-UNIST Joint Research Institute; and the Department of Biomedical Informatics, which has the largest number of full-time faculty members among the domestic medical schools.
In the ceremony, Korea University's College of Medicine revealed its state-of-the-art 3T MRI scanning room to announce its official launch. In addition, the event emphasized Korea University Medicine and the College of Medicine's unwavering investments and their results through reports on the new facility's implementation.
Next, a large number of scholars from the University of Nottingham's School of Medicine, the key hub for international MRI research, attended the international symposium. The event began with a keynote lecture by Professor Dorothee P. Auer of the University of Nottingham, who was appointed as a visiting professor at Korea University, as well as a special lecture on neuromodulation by Professor Marcus Kaiser, a leading scholar in the field of the connectome.
Director Kim Sung-ki of the Brain Science Imaging Research Group at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) was one of the domestic speakers who shared IBS's MRI operational know-how and cutting-edge research achievements. He offered advice on ways to develop medical centers. Professor Lee Jong-hwan of the Department of Brain & Cognitive Engineering at Korea University, who leads MRI research in science and engineering, highlighted examples of studies in convergent brain imaging. Additionally, Professor Kim Hak-jin of the Department of Psychology at Korea University, Professor Jeong Jae-young of the Department of Psychology at the University of Nottingham, Professors Ham Byung-joo and Han Kyu-man of the Department of Psychiatry at Korea University, Professor Kim Byung-jo of the Department of Neurology, and Professor Yoo Sung-hye of the Department of Radiology lectured on case examples of interdisciplinary research.
Furthermore, Korea University and the University of Nottingham held in-depth discussions on their cooperation to lay a foundation for the activation of international collaborative research on advanced MRI. The international cooperation between the two universities began in 2018 and has been publishing advanced MRI research papers focusing on psychiatry, rehabilitation medicine, and neurology. Additionally, their collaboration led to the announcement of new diagnostic techniques based on these research areas.
Dean Pyun Sung-bom of Korea University's College of Medicine said, "Korea University's College of Medicine plans to accelerate our advancement in becoming a global research hub by opening the MRI Precision Imaging Research Center." "In particular, cooperation with the University of Nottingham will be an important starting point for expanding international joint research," he added.
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