Round Table Meetings and Colloquia

   Registration for Special Topic Meetings is open to all interested persons.

   Participation in the Round Table Colloquia is by in­vi­ta­tion only although expenses (travel, lodging, and meals) will not be covered by the Foundation. Commonly no pro­ceed­ings are published; however, the acting Chair­man can decide otherwise.

Round Table Colloquium

As time goes by:
The 50th Anniversary of MR Imaging
Sophia Antipolis, France; 3-4 September 2021

n medical imaging, the times of plain x-rays ended in September 1971 when the world's first axial x-ray com­puter as­sist­ed tomo­graph (CT or CAT) was in­stall­ed in Eng­land.

In the same month, on 2 September 1971, Paul C. Lauterbur, a professor of chemistry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, recorded in his laboratory notebook the idea of ap­ply­ing mag­ne­tic field gradients in all three di­men­sions to create nuc­lear magne­tic re­so­nan­ce (NMR) images — and had his in­ven­tion cer­ti­fied; yet, he was never able to patent it because the uni­ver­sity op­pos­ed it ("The technique has no future").

All NMR experiments before Lauterbur's invention of 1971 had been one-dimensional and lacked spatial information. Nobody could determine exactly where the NMR signal originated within the sample.

Lauterbur's idea changed this. He called his imaging method zeugmatography, combining the Greek words "zeugma" (ζεγμα = the bridge or the yoke that holds two animals together in front of a carriage) and "graphein" (γράφειν= to write, to depict) to describe the joining of chemical and spatial information. This term was later replaced by (N)MR imaging.

This made it possible to create three- and two-dimensional images and metabolic representations of structures of the human body that could not be visualized with other methods. MR imaging replaced previously used invasive examinations and thereby reduced the suffering for many patients. Lauterbur received the Nobel Prize in 2003 for his discovery to create a two-dimensional picture by introducing gradients in the magnetic field.

   The symposium will be an exchange of fond — and perhaps some not so pleasant — memories of the first years and the early decades putting into practice a challenging idea. The scientific and research excitement is long gone, so this meeting will be a remembrance of days past.

   By invitation only.

This two-day meeting is being organized and chaired by Robert N. Muller, Mons, Belgium, and Peter A. Rinck, Sophia-Antipolis, France.

Further reading: "An Excursion into the History of Magnetic Resonance Imaging" — for a free (per­so­nal) off­print of the hi­story of MR imag­ing click here to download.

Contact the TRTF office for additional information.

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Special Topic Meeting

Magnetic Resonance Imaging — Yesterday • Today • Tomorrow
Freiburg, Germany; 18-19 June 2021

nternationally leading scientists in the field will present the development of MRI over the last decades and give their very personal view of where we are coming from and where we are heading. Presentations will not only cover key areas of research but also take a look behind science, how science is made and how it is changing.

There will also be presentations by young scientists about their development and career choices in academia as well as in industry.

Organizing Committee

This two-day meeting is being organized and chaired by Jürgen Hennig, Freiburg, Germany.

   Jürgen Hennig (chair)
   Martin Büchert
   Dominik von Elverfeldt
   Ute Ludwig
   Maxim Zaitsev

More information and registration at the
University of Freiburg webpage.

Conference Secretary: Laurence Haller

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Preliminary Faculty

   Peter Börnert
   Chris Boesch
   Linda Chang
   Daisy Chien
   Thomas M. Ernst
   David Feinberg
   Mike Garwood
   Thomas M. Grist
   Jürgen Hennig
   Gregory C. Hurst
   Roberta Kravitz*
   Gerhard Laub
   Miki Lustig
   Michael Markl
   Chuck Mistretta
   Heinz-Otto Peitgen
   James G. Pipe
   Klaas Prüssmann
   Rebecca Ramb
   Peter A. Rinck
   Klaus Scheffler
   Nicole Seiberlich
   Oliver Speck
   Larry Wald
   * = to be confirmed.

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Sponsored by EMRF and TRTF:

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Special Topic Meeting

Standing at the Crossroads: 40 Years of MR Contrast Agents
Contrast-Enhanced Biomedical Imaging
Mons, Belgium; 9-10 May 2019
The 16th Meeting in the Series

he thirty anniversary conference on MR contrast agents was de­vot­ed to new de­ve­lop­ments in mag­ne­tic re­so­nan­ce con­trast agents – and a re­view of the past 40 years. The two-day meeting turned into an exceptional platform to present and follow-up developments and results in the field since the introduction of such agents.

The conference was organized alternating review lectures of the developments, improvements, challenges, and fail­ures of the last thirty years given by leading experts in the field and presentations of novel theoretical tools, new ideas, and new compounds by young scientists.

The Book of Abstracts of the conference can be down­loaded here.

The Opening Lecture "MR imaging: Quo vadis" was pub­lished on Rinckside and Aunt Minnie Europe.

A Review of the Conference can also be found on Rinck­side and Aunt Minnie Europe.

    Group picture 2019

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Special Topic Meeting

The Depersonalization of Medical Imaging
Ethics in Medicine
Sophia Antipolis, France; 11-12 July 2019
The 9th Meeting in the Series

he symposium's focus was on human beings' right to empathic and personal treatment by physicians, also in the ancillary medical disciplines.

By invitation only. A summary of the meeting was published in Rinckside as part of the discussion of the Covid crisis.

Contact the TRTF office for further information.

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