Imaging without Borders (IMAGINE): Democratizing MRI Access through Hands-on Low-field MRI Education

Abstract

Imaging without Borders (IMAGINE) summer school is a free 9-week hybrid training initiative designed to provide low-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) hardware and scanner maintenance education to biomedical engineers, MR imaging personnel, and clinicians, with emphasis on closing the MRI hardware and engineering competencies in resource-limited settings. The program was delivered to 179 trainees from 33 countries, through an immersive curriculum that combines case-based and hands-on learning approaches to train teams of multidisciplinary learners to build their own low-field scanners and collectively train others. Here, we describe the curriculum and outcomes of two consecutive years of IMAGINE, including on-site construction of 6 low-cost open-source preclinical (50mT) Halbach array scanners in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and North America. The design, components, assembly instructions, and field map tests of the scanners are reported to demonstrate their potential as promising MRI engineering education tools. A repository of all the necessary information to replicate the scanner is publicly available. With further scanner development, through future iterative training programs, IMAGINE can be an avenue for training the next generation of imaging innovators to create local low-cost MRI technology that will sustainably democratize diagnostic imaging and make it readily accessible to all.