AMU-MWI Industrial Chair

Research Works

Aix Marseille University and the company Multiwave Imaging have decided to enter into a partnership that is the subject of an industrial chair supported by the A*Midex Foundation. The total budget for the project, which began in January 2021, is €1,371,363.

This chair aims to develop medical technologies to surpass the state of the art in MRI physics based on the use of metamaterials that have brought a completely new perspective to the issue of wave control. The purpose of the Chair is to evaluate and exploit this disruption of the field to improve medical imaging systems. More precisely, the work related to this Chair is dedicated to the exploration of new radio frequency (RF) antenna systems capable of performing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) on different nuclei. The targeted nuclei are proton (1H), phosphorus (31P), carbon (13C) and sodium (23Na), four nuclei of interest in biology. The developed antennas will be tested in a context of maximum security.

This work is conducted in collaboration with the CRMBM (UMR CNRS 7339), the French company, Multiwave Imaging SAS (https://www.multiwaveimaging.com) and the Fresnel Institute (https://www.fresnel.fr/spip).

The 3-year industrial chair (2021-2023) aims to improve medical imaging systems for health and sports performance evaluation.

The project should thus enable academic and industrial partners to join forces around a common objective:

• The Fresnel Institute (UMR AMU/CNRS/Centrale Marseille) brings its expertise in the field of metamaterials, for radio frequency waves or in optics.
• The French company Multiwave Imaging brings its expertise in the design of solutions and in their industrialization.
• The CRMBM-CEMEREM brings its expertise in the field of method development, MRI and MRS applications and in the precise identification of needs in the application fields.