Newcastle Magnetic
Resonance Centre

Established in 2006, Newcastle Magnetic Resonance Centre plays a crucial role in clinical research and development, working in partnership with Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Located within the Health Innovation Neighbourhood, the Centre is an integral part of the Centre for In Vivo Imaging. 

An original investment of £5.4million was required, with capital funding coming from many sources including:

• One North East
• the Northern Rock Foundation
• Newcastle Healthcare Charity
• the Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust
• HEFCE (SRIF2)
• the Barclay Foundation
• Newcastle University
• private donations
• Charlie Crowe scanner appeal

State-of-the-Art Facilities

Located within the Health Innovation Neighbourhood, our Centre boasts over 900m² of research space equipped with:

High-Field MRI Scanners

Two Philips 3T research MRI systems supporting multi-nuclear imaging and spectroscopy. In September 2025 we commissioned our new flagship scanner, a wide 70cm bore MR7700 offering enhanced patient comfort, with an enhanced gradient system (simultaneous 220T/m/s and 65mT/m) and specialised 32/16 channel proton imaging coils for all body parts, including head and neck, spine, lung, abdomen and cardiac, knee, wrist and ankle/foot, small extremity, offering the best signal to noise and resolution.  Coils are combinable for whole body imaging.

Advanced Scan Acceleration

Our MR7700 scanner offers advanced acceleration capabilities including multiband (SMS) acceleration for high resolution diffusion tensor imaging and functional neuroimaging, and compressed sensing acceleration for all other scans. These capabilities can be optionally combined with AI reconstruction for speed and comfort.

Neuroimaging modalities

 High resolution DTI (up to 2048 diffusion encodings with up to 1024 weightings and 1024 directions) with fibre tracking and functional MRI. Advanced proton spectroscopy with GABA/glutamine/glutamate quantification.

Liver Imaging

Advanced MR Elastography equipment for performing abdominal liver/spleen elastography to detect stiffness associated with fibrosis.

Breast imaging

A dedicated 16 channel breast coil is available for imaging and spectroscopy studies of cancer. 

Functional MRI

Dedicated Cambridge Research Systems in-magnet high fidelity display monitor, and response boxes for functional tasks.

Cardiac Imaging

Full suite of morphological and functional imaging sequences, including quantitative measurements of myocardial remodelling (extracellular volume measurement) and edema (T2 relaxation time measurement).

Multi-nuclear imaging/spectroscopy

These systems support multi-nuclear imaging and spectroscopy with coils for 31P, 13C, 7Li, 19F, and 23Na measurements. Spectroscopy measurements via PRESS, STEAM, ISIS, semi-LASER are all available.

Clinical Research Facilities

Designed with patient comfort in mind, our Centre includes 2 study rooms equipped for venepuncture, blood glucose monitoring, infusion studies, and physiological monitoring, facilitating a wide range of clinical research activities.

Find out how to access services at the Newcastle Magnetic Resonance Centre.

MR Workshop

The workshop supports basic MR Physics development, MR coil design and construction of any required research equipment, such as in-magnet exercise ergometers.