NICI has started at 1 June 2018 and has a duration of 36 months. Physicists, biologists, chemists and clinicans will work closely together until May 2021.
Vision
The development of a non-invasive technology for imaging (bio)chemical processes in the human body will open a new and effective window to understand human biology, diseases and their treatment. NICI’s long-term vision is to unite these two areas of research and combine the strength of metabolomics (biochemical insights) with that of MRI (3D imaging). The main idea behind the project is to transform emerging 7T MRI scanners into 3D chemistry imagers, thus providing a versatile tool to study human physiology.
Workpackage
NICI consists of seven work packages (WP) running throughout the project duration of 36 months. Each work package is led by one consortium partner.
| WP | Title | Lead | Start Month | End Month |
| 1 | Discovery of discriminative chemical imaging biomarkers | NTNU | 1 | 18 |
| 2 | Development of RF patient tubes of 7T MRI systems | MRCoils | 1 | 24 |
| 3 | Development of pulse sequences for whole body chemistry imaging | IMAGO7 | 1 | 24 |
| 4 | Development of standardized data processing and interpretation | UCAM | 7 | 27 |
| 5 | Validation non-invasive chemistry imaging in the human body | AMC | 19 | 36 |
| 6 | Dissemination, communication and exploitation | UMCU | 1 | 36 |
| 7 | Project management | UMCU | 1 | 36 |