Quantum-Enhanced MRI Project Aims to Improve Early Cancer Detection

Insider Brief

Researchers at Aarhus University and NVision Imaging Technologies launched the MIRAQLE project to develop quantum-enhanced MRI technology for earlier cancer detection.
The project aims to make MRI scans up to 100,000 times more sensitive by amplifying metabolic signals linked to cancer activity.
Denmark’s Innovation Fund invested DKK 40 million in the five-year initiative, which will focus initially on liver cancer diagnostics.
Photos from Pexels by MART PRODUCTION.

PRESS RELEASE — A new research project should make it possible to see cancer activity before the disease can be detected with conventional scans. The goal is to bring a new type of quantum reinforced MR technology into the clinic, so doctors get a whole new tool to detect and treat cancer in time. The Innovation Fund invests DKK 40 million. DKK in the project.

Cancer is often discovered too late. Although standard MR scans are good at showing a tumor size and location, the metabolic activity that reveals how aggressive the disease is or whether a treatment works. It needs a new research project, MIRAQLE, change.

With an investment from the Innovation Fund, researchers from the MRI Research Center, Aarhus University and NVision Imaging Technologies will develop a new type of MRI platform that can visualize the metabolism of cancer. By amplifying the contrast agent’s MRI signal, the metabolic activity may be visible during a routine MRI scan. It can make it possible to detect serious illness in the past and monitor treatment effects far more precisely than is possible today.

Special Focus on Liver Cancer

The new research project is particularly focused on liver cancer, where it can be difficult for doctors to distinguish between benign changes and early liver cancer. Many patients are diagnosed today only when the disease is advanced. With the new technology, doctors will not only be able to detect the disease in the past, but also assess how aggressive it is.

Cancer cells convert sugar differently than healthy tissue, and NVision Imaging Technologies makes this activity visible.

– We are honored to support Denmark’s ambition to bring quantum-enhanced MRI into routine clinical use in partnership with Aarhus University, says Sella Brosh, CEO of NVision Imaging Technologies.

– We will be able to see how the cancer behaves, not just where it is. This can change the feedback cycle from months to days and thus become crucial to when and how patients are treated, says Professor Christoffer Laustsen, project manager and head of the MR Research Center at Aarhus University.

Up to 100,000 Times More Sensitive

The new technology is based on quantum physics and can make MR scans up to 100,000 times more sensitive than those available today. This means that even very small changes at the cell level can be detected. At the same time, the scan is performed completely without radioactive radiation – as opposed to many current methods used in cancer diagnostics.

The technology is developed so that it can be used in ordinary hospitals and integrated into existing MRI scanners. The project ranges from laboratory research to clinical testing and will culminate in the first scans of patients.

Strengthen Danish Health and Quantum Technology

In addition to improving cancer diagnostics, MIRAQLE aims to strengthen Denmark’s position in both health technology and quantum technology. The project brings together researchers, clinicians and companies in close cooperation and will establish a Danish center for the new scanning technology.

The ambition is clear: to provide doctors with a better basis for decisions, patients more targeted treatment and society with more effective and less stressful cancer diagnostics.