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Contents 1 Regulatory agencies 2 Clinical MRI scanners 3 Small-bore MRI scanners 4 Computing Center

Regulatory agencies

• IRB

All research involving human subjects require approval from the Institutional Review Board. Please visit http://www.upenn.edu/regulatoryaffairs/IRB.html for details. Take the online exam (http://www.upenn.edu/regulatoryaffairs/human/train2.html) as soon as possible.

• IACUC

All research that involves animals require approval from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Please visit http://www.upenn.edu/regulatoryaffairs/IACUC.html for details. Take the online exams (http://www.upenn.edu/regulatoryaffairs/animal/train.html) as soon as possible and sign-up for any hand-on training sessions you require.

• CAMRIS & SAIF

Following IRB or IACUC approval for your protocol, you’ll need Center for Advanced Magnetic resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy (CAMRIS) approval for all research on the clinical MRI scanners. Visit http://www.mmrrcc.upenn.edu/camris/ for details. For the non-clinical smallbore scanners, all experiments need or Small Animal Imaging Facility (SAIF) approval. Visit http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/radiology/depa/SAIF/index.html for details.

CAMRIS & SAIF meet once every two weeks on a Tuesday and reviews all applications. At the end of that day, they will give you an account (either a PRODEV account for unfunded protocol development projects or another name if the project is funded) and time on the appropriate MRI scanner you requested on the application.

Clinical MRI scanners

After CAMRIS approval and account creation, scheduling time on these scanners is possible via the online calendar: http://www.cfn.upenn.edu/calendar/. Also contact the following:
1) Norm Butler by email: nsbutler@ieee.org or phone: (215) 349-5298 for user approval and training.
2) Tom Connick by email: rfmail1@mail.mmrrcc.upenn.edu or phone: (215) 662-6671 for help with the coil building and the coil approval process.
3) Hee-Kwon Song by email: hsong@uphs.upenn.edu or phone: (215) 662-6265 for pulse sequence approval.

• HUP-5 (1.5 Tesla)

This Siemens Sonata MRI scanner is located in the basement of Founders building at HUP. Schedule for all times online.

• HUP-6 (3 Tesla)

This Siemens Trio scanner is also located in the basement of Founders. Schedule for all times online. The calendar for HUP-6 has blocks of time called “MULTINUC” exclusively for use by our group.

Small-bore MRI scanners

After SAIF approval and account creation, scheduling time on these scanners is possible via the online calendar: http://www.cfn.upenn.edu/calendar/. Please contact Steve Pickup by email: pickup@mail.med.upenn.edu or phone: (215) 349-5297 for training and account set-up.

• HUP-C (4.7 Tesla)

This Varian horizontal-bore magnet is used for most animal imaging experiments and is located in the basement of Founders building next to HUP5 and HUP6. You’ll need and access code to enter from Steve.

• HUP-D (9.4 Tesla)

This Varian horizontal-bore animal scanner is located in the basement of John Morgan building. You’ll need a key from Steve to open the doors.

Computing Center

There are a several PC and Mac desktop computers in the lab. If you have your own computer, please ask the appropriate personnel below for software and hardware requirements.

• Lab email account

Please get an account on these computers by contacting Mark Elliott by email: mark@mail.mmrrcc.upenn.edu or find him in lab.

• Pulse programming

Some dual-boot (Linux & Windows XP) Dell PCs are for pulse sequence programming for the Siemens clinical scanners. The software for this is called IDEA and the latest version is installed. The computers may be used for non-pulse programming related work as well such as data processing. Please contact Matthew Fenty with any questions.

• Data Processing

The dual-boot Dell PCs also have the Interactive Data Language (IDL) software. For your own computer, trial versions of IDL are downloadable from http://www.rsinc.com or licenses can be ordered via the Office of Software Licensing http://www.business-services.upenn.edu/softwarelicenses/. To process images (Sodium concentration maps, relaxation maps, proton density maps, etc.) obtained from the Siemens scanners, two postprocessing steps must be performed: (1) pre-processing and (2) image analysis.

• • Pre-processing

Unsorted DICOM-type images obtained from the clinical MRI scanners must be sorted using IDL software prior to analysis. To obtain a copy of IDL for your PC, contact Matthew Fenty. Conversely, images may be downloaded directly to your PC laptop from the scanner itself and need not be sorted using IDL. For more information on how to obtain sorted DICOM images directly from the scanner, contact Walter Witschey.

• • Image Analysis

Sorted Siemens images are of type DICOM (.dcm). For mapping (T2ρ, T1ρ, T2, T1, etc.), a series of DICOM images may be processed using software in IDL. To obtain custom-written mapping programs in either language, contact Matt or Walter.