OSU, state to announce Third Frontier partnership - Business First of Columbus:

OSU, state to announce Third Frontier partnership - Business First of Columbus:

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State and Ohio State University officials plan to announce new funding and business partners Wednesday for a center trying to develop the world’s most powerful MRI.

The public-private collaboration as part of the state’s Third Frontier program would include several million dollars of new investment and a partnership with Dublin health-care products distributor Cardinal Health Inc. at the Wright Center of Innovation in Biomedical Imaging.

Wright Centers are a Third Frontier program for collaborations between academics and industry. The imaging center, in an outpatient facility near OSU Medical Center, is one of four in the biological sciences that have attracted $87 million in grants. It was founded with a $17 million grant in 2003 that was set to expire this year.

The imaging center has an MRI powered by a 7-Tesla magnet, which exerts a pull about 140,000 times that of Earth’s gravity. That allows for rapid, clear scans that show internal organs and reduce the need for exploratory surgery. Researchers hope to develop the first-ever 8-Tesla MRI.

Collaborators in the original grant included Case Western Reserve University, Philips Medical Systems of Highland Heights, and the Ohio Supercomputer Center.

The partnership with Cardinal includes its network of nuclear pharmacies, which distribute radioactive pharmaceuticals such as the tracing agents used to determine if a patient has blockage in blood vessels surrounding the heart. Some Cardinal Health employees will move to the center as it looks for ways to take its discoveries to the marketplace.