Sim4Life User Workshop and ZMT Exhibition at ISMRM 2025 in Honolulu

From May 10 – 15, 2025, the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) community gathered at the Joint Annual Meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) in Honolulu, Hawaii. ZMT introduced novel MRI-specific features of Sim4Life such as improvements to the Virtual Observation Point (VOP) analysis tool, an update of its powerful cloud-based platform Sim4Life.web, and the first low-field (LF) table-top MRI implant test system, comprising extensions to the PiX and MITS-TT  to work over a wide range of frequencies as well as an extension of the IT’IS MRIxViP library to 0.55T scans.

ISMRM Sim4Life User Workshop

As in previous years, this workshop provided the unique opportunity for a diverse group of invited speakers to show more than 100 Sim4Life users and experts how Sim4Life makes a big difference in their research and development projects.

The first talk was given by Shao Che from United Imaging Shanghai, who described how he used Sim4Life and the models of the Virtual Population of the IT’IS Foundation for the design and the safety evaluation of United Imaging’s 5T Jupiter radiofrequency (RF) transmit coils. Shao’s presentation was nicely complemented by the talk of Kyoko Fujimoto, from GE Healthcare and representing the ISMRM Safety Subgroup, who discussed the importance of computational modeling for the assessment of MRI safety.

Next, Professor Ji Chen from University of Houston talked about the potential impacts of the combined effects of gradient coiled induced (E-)fields and RF coil induced heating near nerve fibers on the vagus nerve. Professor Özlem Ipek from King’s College London started the 2nd session with her introduction to the challenges of RF safety evaluation for parallel transmit (pTx) coils, the off-line specific absorption rate (SAR) management using electromagnetic (EM) simulations of RF coils with digital anatomical models, the calculation of the respective Q-matrix, and the acceleration using VOP compression. Her talk included a comparison between previous MATLAB-based methods and Sim4Life, demonstrating the superiority in time and convenience of the Parallel Transmission Tool implemented in Sim4Life.

The workshop was concluded by Magdy Iskander’s (University of Hawaii) vivid talk on a translational journey on how RF technologies redefined cardiopulmonary monitoring — from non-invasive chest-patch stethoscopes to his latest advancement: intracardiac virtual catheters. He showed how Sim4Life helped to demonstrate and verify feasibility, pointing out that the intended hybrid framework of coupling full-wave computational EM models (Sim4Life), validation clinical trials, and artificial intelligence (AI-)based signal interpretation, will be central for the clinical utilization of this new technology in future.

User Presentations and Live Demos at the ZMT Booth

On Monday, May 12, Jessica A. Martinez from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and Diego Martinez from the University Health Network Toronto (UHN) shared their Sim4Life experiences on clinical MRI applications.

Jessica established a workflow for converting T1-weighted MR images from individual volunteers into personalized, high-resolution multi-tissue brain models. This process employed Sim4Life’s new AI-assisted segmentation and tissue property assignment to enable real-time, subject-specific SAR assessments.

Diego showed how he extracted patient-specific deep brain stimulation (DBS) trajectories from computed tomography scans using Sim4Life’s AI-assisted segmentation tool. These trajectories were then placed within a body model exposed to a 21.3 MHz birdcage system. The IMSAFE tool in Sim4Life was subsequently used to extract the tangential E-field and evaluate a heating metric for assessing the safety of patient-specific DBS implants at low-field conditions.

On the following days, Arjama Halder from the ZMT Sim4Life Support Team gave live demos on iterative RF birdcage design and tuning, pTx array design and safety analysis, receive coil design & analysis, and clinical routing bundles of implant leads and field extractions using Sim4Life IMSafe.

ISMRM Sessions

At ISMRM itself, Sim4Life as well as the Virtual Population were widely represented throughout the RF safety sessions, and many of the MR Safety Study Group Business Meeting student talks. It was inspiring to see the academic research enabled in part by ZMT software.

A big thank you to everyone who joined us at the booth and during the workshop!

We are looking forward to seeing you again at upcoming ISMRM Workshop on MRI Safety which will be held in Berlin, Germany, September 24–26, 2025!