Body MRI: Unsolved Problems & Unmet Needs

Workshop Title: “Body MRI: Unsolved Problems & Unmet Needs” Workshop Overview and Aims Functional body MRI biomarkers are underused in research and clinical practice due to the need for dedicated in-house expertise and development. Transferring solutions to other centers is therefore a challenge, leading to a significant duplication of efforts, a lack of standardization in the methods, and difficulties in comparing results between centers. This also limits commercial buy-in, hinders the set-up of multi-center trials, and overall slows down their translation into clinical practice. The proposed workshop aims to bridge this gap. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together internationally recognized scientists and clinicians along with new investigators who are currently developing and applying advanced renal MRI techniques to investigate the causes and consequences of body diseases. The program of this workshop integrates clinical presentations outlining the needs for non- invasive testing and biomarkers and covers advances in contrast-based MRI, new applications of relaxometry, diffusion, and elastography, and application of Artificial Intelligence techniques. We intend to include interactive sessions. With an important focus on the next generation, the workshop will include mentoring sessions for trainees and new investigators, called “Meet the Experts”. These mentoring sessions will provide specific information on clinical trials design, funding and regulations, as well as a hands-on “How-to” session on available imaging post-processing software. A previous NIDDK supported ISMRM workshop on Renal imaging held in September 2021 was attended in-person by 80+ attendees. Thus, we expect robust interest in the community for the proposed workshop.