On September 27, our lab, coordinated by Francesca Saviola and Ilaria Ricchi, participated as one of the ten worldwide sites in the Traveling Spine Initiative—and one of only two in Switzerland (together with the Zurich site – Balgrist led by Maryam Seif). As part of this collaborative effort, we successfully acquired a full protocol for quantitative and functional imaging of the cervical spinal cord at ultra-high field (7 T MRI) This milestone contributes to the ongoing multi-center study, Multi-center benchmarking of cervical spinal cord RF coils for 7 T MRI: A traveling spines study.

After a full day of scanning, the team concluded with an afternoon of networking and exchange. A special thanks goes to Robert Barry, Daniel Papp, and Laura Beghini (PhD student in Johanna Vannesjo’s group) for their essential contributions in making this effort possible and to all other collaborators (Virginie Callot, Alan Seifert, and Johanna Vannesjo), as well as to the FCBG MR facility for their invaluable support and collaboration.

From left to right: Matilde Bisi, Francesca Saviola, Laura Beghini, Daniel Papp, Robert Barry, Ilaria Ricchi.