The course, titled ‘Hybrid radionuclide imaging – PET-MR’, is an online distance education course run by of the Edinburgh Imaging Academy. PET-MR is a cutting-edge brain imaging technique that promises to give researchers important new insights into a range of neurological disorders.
The Edinburgh course combines key theoretical and practical information over three modules involving lectures, directed reading and participation in discussion boards. In the first module, students learn the fundamentals of PET imaging techniques and physics, including reconstruction of PET images and quality control.
The second module covers radiotracers, including radiochemistry and the cyclotron – a type of particle accelerator used in neuroimaging. The final module address the practicalities of PET-MR, such as health and safety, consent, standardisation and governance.
‘Hybrid radionuclide imaging – PET-MR’ is embedded as a ten-credit course in the University of Edinburgh’s PET-MR Principles and Applications Certificate degree programme. It can also be taken as an elective course for students on the Imaging MSc/Dip/Cert programmes.
The course is run entirely online, and students are supervised by University of Edinburgh academics. Professor Andrew Farrall leads the Edinburgh Imaging Academy and developed the course with colleagues in the PET-MR field.
Dementias Platform UK has funded and supported the creation of the course as part of an MRC partnership grant. This means DPUK Imaging Network members can access the course content for free (although no university credits will be accrued).’
‘For those outside the University of Edinburgh’s degree programmes or the DPUK Imaging Network, there is a fee of £137 for accessing the course content (again, with no university credits available). For further information and to register, please contact the team at imaging.academy@ed.ac.uk.
DPUK’s Imaging Network is the first nationwide network of its kind and incorporates eight state-of-the-art PET-MR scanners (seven of which were funded by DPUK) at universities and hospitals across the UK. The network is creating a world-leading environment for applying advanced brain imaging techniques in support of experimental medicine and clinical trials in dementia research.