{"id":1221,"date":"2014-12-10T15:41:41","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T20:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/news\/?p=499"},"modified":"2020-11-30T13:59:56","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T18:59:56","slug":"cmasts-magnetic-resonance-imaging-facility-our-newest-attraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/2014\/12\/cmasts-magnetic-resonance-imaging-facility-our-newest-attraction\/","title":{"rendered":"CMAST’s Magnetic Resonance Imaging Facility: Our Newest Attraction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Horizontal<\/a>
Horizontal bore magnet image of a bottlenose dolphin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CMAST\u2019s new Marine Magnetic Resonance Facility (MMRF) went online in July 2014, allowing marine scientists to study marine life on a whole new level.<\/p>\n

According to the project director, Dr. Michael Stoskopf, \u201cThe applications for the magnet are limited only by our imagination and the size of the animal we can fit inside the machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The MMRF at CMAST maintains the only wide bore instrument in the world dedicated to in vivo longitudinal dynamic stress-response studies in intact living marine organisms.<\/p>\n

Most people are somewhat familiar with an MRI. These are images that are made by collecting data about individual atoms in a patient and translating that information mathematically into brightness patterns in two or three dimensions that we recognize as images.<\/p>\n

The CMAST magnet does the same thing, but has a higher resolution than routine medical MRI magnets. The MMRF at CMAST can obtain very detailed pictures of what the tissues and organs inside a marine creature look like, as well as how metabolic pathways respond to environmental stressors. Moreover, there are a wide range of industrial applications for agriculture and aquaculture industries, such as looking at metabolic efficiencies in various strains of crops or aquatic species raised in hatcheries.<\/p>\n

\"Sea<\/a>
Sea turtle from the outside (top) down to the inside (bottom), from an image of the turtle inside its egg. This provides an unprecetended view into the animal\u2019s life before it hatches into the world, now possible at CMAST\u2019s MMRF.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cA major feature of the magnet is that it is possible to image live animals and actually obtain real biochemical data from them without having to sacrifice them,\u201d said Dr. Stoskopf. \u201cWe usually must anesthetize all but the most sessile animals so that they will remain still through the imaging, and we are experts at marine animal anesthesia if necessary. No other analytical tool can provide these types of data on such a wide range of metabolic pathways. Magnetic resonance techniques can also replace traditional techniques for monitoring the safety and quality of foods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The MMRF is the brainchild of NC State\u2019s Dr. Michael Stoskopf and Dr. Jeffrey McDonald of UNC-Chapel Hill, who have been discussing and planning such a facility for decades. The reality first began to take shape with the key support provided by the\u00a0North Carolina Biotechnology Center, which appropriated funds in 2006 to obtain and operate a large horizontal bore research magnet at the coast. An underused wide bore horizontal magnet (the MRI machine) was located at a hospital in New Jersey, who agreed to donate it to the project. All that was left was to find it a home.<\/p>\n

\"(Left<\/a>
(Left to right) Dr. Michael Stoskopf, NC State CVM; Ken Burnette, Architect, Burnette Architecture and Planning; Merlin Huckemeyer, Project Manager of Thomas Simpson Construction; Dr. Terri Lomax, Vice Chancellor of the Office of Research, Innovation & Economic Development, NC State; Dr. David Eggleston, Director, CMAST; Ernie Yeager, Facilities Coordinator, CMAST; Carter Murdock, Burnette Architecture and Planning.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thanks to an effort spearheaded by CMAST, that home became a facility built on the CMAST campus from the ground up, specifically for the MMRI equipment. CMAST Director Dr. David Eggleston led the way to obtain the grant support from the National Science Foundation, and an equally important investment by NC State University\u2019s Vice Chancellor, Dr. Terri Lomax (Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development), allowed the facility to be completed.<\/p>\n

CMAST\u2019s wide bore horizontal magnet is the only one in the world dedicated to the study of marine organisms. This facility and the expertise to run it are now available to marine scientists across the country and around the world<\/p>\n

\"Panoramic<\/a>
Panoramic view of CMAST’s new MMRF facility.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CMAST\u2019s new Marine Magnetic Resonance Facility (MMRF) went online in July 2014, allowing marine scientists to study marine life on a whole new level. According to the project director, Dr. Michael Stoskopf, \u201cThe applications for the magnet are limited only by our imagination and the size of the animal we can fit inside the machine.\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cvm"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4713,"href":"https:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1221\/revisions\/4713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmast.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}