Boost for advances in medical technology
“Brainmapping Technology”: This is the name of the LOEWE Transfer Professorship, with which the state of Hesse is supporting the utilization of Prof. Dr. Boris Keil`s research. The expert in MRI imaging procedures from the Life Science Engineering Department at THM is working on the further development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for high-precision imaging of the human brain and nervous system.
Since the beginning of the year, Prof. Keil has been leading the new Research Cluster “Advanced Medical Physics in Imaging and Therapy” (ADMIT), which was set up as part of the state offensive for the development of scientific-economic excellence (LOEWE), as scientific project coordinator. Closely linked to this is the project with which he convinced the jury when applying for the LOEWE Transfer Professorship. The funding amounts to a total of one million euros and has a term of five years, with the University of Applied Sciences contributing a fifth of the sum from budget funds.
Keil's research group is the only European team involved in the “Human Connectome Project”. This is a US initiative led by Harvard University that focuses on new scanning approaches to comprehensively map the human brain and understand how it works.
The scientist wants to use the additional opportunities that the Transfer Professorship offers him to both advance the economic value creation of his research work and to achieve application benefits for medicine and the general public. Accordingly, he sees industry, hospitals and society as the recipients of the forced transfer. Since the research and implementation of device innovations must be carried out in close connection with clinical testing, the continuous management of the exchange plays a key role in success. Therefore, part of the funding for the Brainmapping Technology Professorship should flow into the creation of a management position for transfer at the interface between the research team, industry and clinic.
“The approval of the Transfer Professorship from the LOEWE state programme once again confirms the research strength of the THM and at the same time opens up prospects for transferring our achievements in this field into concrete applications in an even more targeted manner. I congratulate Prof. Boris Keil and the THM Research and Young Academics Department on the significant success that has an impact on our entire university," commented THM President Prof. Dr. Matthias Willems on the decision from Wiesbaden.
Prof. Dr. Boris Keil came to the University of Applied Sciences in 2016 from Harvard Medical School, where he had been an Assistant Professor in Radiology. Since then he has represented the field of magnetic resonance imaging in teaching and research at the LSE Department. At THM he is a member of the Competence Center for Biotechnology and Biomedical Physics as well as the Institute for Medical Physics and Radiation Protection. His widely funded, internationally networked research projects deal with application-oriented hardware developments and method development for MRI imaging.