SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 9 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Martín, and the rector of the University of La Laguna (ULL), Rosa Aguilar, presented this Thursday the new magnetic resonance machine that has recently been incorporated into the Tenerife Medical Institute (Imetisa) and that places the island to the world vanguard.
Also participating in the presentation were the third vice president and counselor for Social Action, Marián Franquet; the director of the Health area of Tenerife, Ignacio López Puech; the manager of Imetisa, Néstor Sánchez, and the head of the scientific team, José Luis González Mora.
Pedro Martín assured that “it is the most modern and advanced machine of any public health center in Spain”, with which it is possible to “advance a double objective, such as improving the health services provided to the population and expand, at the same time, the research capacity in medical sciences”, since its use will be shared 50% with the University of La Laguna so that during the morning it can work with patients and in the afternoon it will be used for scientific studies.
The president added that in this Imetisa service (owned by the Cabildo, with the exception of a 10% that belongs to the Canary Islands Health Service), “more than 10,500 resonance tests are performed per year, an average of 40 per day, which now with the new equipment, they gain in image quality and speed”.
The rector Rosa Aguilar, for her part, highlighted “the importance of collaborating with the Cabildo de Tenerife and the Canary Islands Health Service to participate with Imetisa in this project and have such an important infrastructure to continue developing high-level research that It’s done at the University.”
In his opinion, “only by collaborating will we be able to solve the great challenges we have in the Canary Islands”.
He also valued the participation of Professor José Luis González Mora, head of the scientific team of the ULL of Imetisa and main promoter of this project.
For her part, Marián Franquet, stressed that “the collaboration between the Canary Islands Health Service and the Cabildo de Tenerife is essential to advance on all public health issues, as well as with the University of La Laguna, which is also key, and of course to the Imetisa staff, who have been the ones who have put in the effort and desire to make this happen”.
AUTISM AND SENSORY IMPLANTS
The Signa Premier XT machine, manufactured by GE Healthcare, allows not only to greatly speed up the speed with which studies are carried out due to its fully digital equipment, but also to implement many tests that were not possible before, according to Professor Mora, who He added that thanks to “this new machine, the ability to work at the same level, both in research and in clinical practice, as the best hospital in the world.”
Its acquisition has involved a total investment of 1.4 million euros, of which 70% is contributed through a subsidy granted to the ULL by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the rest corresponds to Imetisa and own funds from the University.
Currently there are 16 ULL groups that work with Imetisa in their research projects.
The main lines of research are focused on the neuronal study of the various categories of autism; the use of sensory implants for the use of robotic limbs for patients with amputations or physical deficiencies and the application of magnetic resonance and Artificial Intelligence.
In addition, the ULL scientific team maintains collaborations with other research groups from national and international institutions such as Harvard University (USA), Cambridge University (UK), King’s College London, (UK), University of Toronto Scarborough, ( Canada), University of Hull, (UK), Fraunhofer Institute for Medical Image Computing MEVIS (Germany), Karolinska Institute, (Sweden) among other prestigious international institutions.
