Lucas Center
The Richard M. Lucas Center for Imaging is one of the few centers in the world with major centralized resources devoted to research in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), spectroscopy (MRS) and X-Ray/CT imaging. The Center has pioneered MRI/MRS/X-Ray/CT technology while developing new techniques that benefit patients with stroke, cancer, heart disease, and brain disorders. The Center is a National Center for Research Resources funded by the NIH. It provides office and laboratory facilities for faculty members and their complement of research staff, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and support staff. The Center supports collaborative and original research using human subjects and intact animal models.
The facilities at the Lucas Center underwent a major expansion that doubled the size of the facility as well as increasing the number of research MR systems. The new space houses a 7.0T whole-body MR system and offices for additional faculty, staff, and students. The expansion is also a focal point for molecular imaging activity, housing a cyclotron and radiochemistry facilities for radiopharmaceutical production as well as a number of the people involved in the effort. Besides research space, the expansion gave us the opportunity to construct a state-of-the-art educational center. Plans are currently underway to add a second 3.0T MR system within the existing building.
The Center builds on a long-standing and very close working relationship between faculty and students of the Radiological Sciences Laboratory (RSL), members of the Magnetic Resonance Systems Research Laboratory (MRSRL) in the Department of Electrical Engineering, and faculty, postdoctoral fellows and residents from the Department of Radiology at Stanford University Medical Center and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. The RSL is responsible for the scientific management of the Center and its goals are:
- to apply MR technology to fundamental anatomic, physiologic, and pathophysiologic studies involving animals and humans;
- to advance MR technology to improve health and patient care;
- to provide educational opportunities in MR to researchers, clinicians and students; and
- to serve the academic and industrial community through access to Lucas Center facilities and resources.
Annual Report
The Lucas Center annually publishes a compendium detailing its current research, staff, and facilities. Copies of this report are available for download here: The Lucas Report.