A cutting-edge medical scanning centre is opened today at the University of Edinburgh. Opened by the Duke of Edinburgh, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) invested £3 million in the centre to give researchers a vital window on heart disease.
Scientists at the Clinical Research Imaging Centre – which cost £20 million in total – will use the technology to uncover the secrets of the heart.
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The BHF-funded magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner uses magnets and sophisticated computer technology to provide highly detailed, instant, real-time moving images of the inside of the body, without using radiation.
The scanner is said to be extremely advanced. It can build up images of many different types of organ and tissue. As one of several sophisticated imaging machines at the new facility, the MRI scanner will help develop new techniques and find new treatments for heart disease and other illnesses, whilst reducing the need for invasive surgery in diagnosis.
Professor Peter Weissberg, Medical Director at the BHF, said: “High tech imaging can provide us with a window on the heart that’s clearer than ever. Thanks to our supporters we’ve been able to fund the MRI scanner in this fantastic new centre in Edinburgh.”
BHF Chair of Cardiology at the University of Edinburgh, Professor David Newby, said:-“This world-leading new centre brings together the very latest imaging technologies in a single facility. With the University’s world-leading clinical research, this will allow a major improvement in our ability rapidly to investigate and understand the most serious and distressing diseases in our patients.”
The University of Edinburgh is one of four BHF Centres of Research Excellence.
