Medical Metrology

The Berlin Ultrahigh Field Facility (BUFF) is a joint effort of Berlin based research institutions headed by the Max-Delbrück-Centrum für Molekulare Medizin (MDC) Berlin-Buch. BUFF is located on the MDC campus and it started with a 7-T whole-body MR scanner for clinical research and a 9.4-T small-animal scanner as its key components. PTB contributes its MR physical background to the facility ceremonially opened on January 20, 2009. It represents the first major building block of the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC), a joint project of MDC and Charité − Universitätsmedizin Berlin which is dedicated to translational research. Only a few weeks after its inauguration the funding for a substantial upgrade of the new facility could be secured: after the necessary extension of the building an additional 3-tesla whole body scanner was installed in December 2009.

Within the Berlin Ultrahigh Field Facility, which apart from MDC, PTB, and Charité is also supported by the Leibniz-Institut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP), scientists from all partnering institutions will be jointly working in the fields of cardio-vascular, oncological, and neurological diseases.

In cooperation with its research partners as well as with scanner manufacturer Siemens, PTB's MRI group will predominantly be working in the areas of parallel transmission and coil development.

On September 11, 2008, the heavyweight core element of the Berlin's long-awaited 7-tesla tomograph was delivered and brought into place in the new MRI building. It took three days to get the 32-ton magnet from Oxford, UK, where it was constructed and built by Magnex Scientific Ltd. on behalf of Siemens corporation, to Berlin. Now it has reached it's final destination, accurately to the millimeter. As the 250-ton steel cage would exert strong forces on an asymetrically placed magnet, the latter had to be aligned very precisely. It will take many weeks to get the next steps done - cooling down the superconducting magnet, energizing it, installing the electronics, finishing the scanning room. With the beginning of the year 2009 the new research tool shall be handed over to its user community from MDC, Charité, and PTB.

On January 21, 2009, the new facility was officially handed over to its user community. Guest of honour Dr. Annette Schavan, Germany's Federal Minister of Education and Research, was not content by just cutting the inevitable blue ribbon, she performed the first measurement, too. Prof. Walter Rosenthal, MDC's Scientific Director, volunteered as the subject to be investigated.