Chapter Meetings

Indian Chapter Conference

Bustling Hyderabad hosted the 2025 ISMRM Indian chapter conference from Feb. 27th to March 1st, 2025. With participants from more than 120 academic institutes, the level of science presented, was extremely high. Neurology played a large part of the meeting with talks covering neurodegenerative disorders and brain damage as well as brain connectivity. In oncology, elastography was at the focus. The clincial presentations were mirrored in the preclinical presentations, a fact which was emphasized in a Bruker sponsored talk that underscored the potential of preclinical imaging to bridge the gap between basic research and clinical applications. Centering on India, additional sessions dicussed the impact of the country's, while still at a very low median, aging population.

Italian Chapter Conference

The city of Lecco was the host of the 2025 ISMRM Italian Chapter Conference from March 24th to 26th, where the spotlight was on pediatric imaging and emerging MRI techniques. The program featured developments in synthetic MRI, tumor microenvironment imaging, and structural and functional connectomics. Picking up on the additional topic of high-relaxivity contrast media, Silvio Aime, whose pioneering work continues to shape the future of imaging, presented an educational talk titled “Design and Testing of Innovative Procedures with Paramagnetic MRI Contrast Agents". In the preclinical realm, Eleonora Cavallari, also from Torino, presented O2 in vivo assessment of transmembrane water cycling in the developing brain using experiments on chicken embryo permeating Gd CA through the egg surface without injection.

Iberian Chapter Conference

The 2026 ISMRM Iberian Chapter Meeting, held in sunny Coimbra at the University of Coimbra's Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, brought together around 100 MRI researchers, clinicians, students, and industry partners from across Portugal and Spain. The program offered an excellent balance of clinical and preclinical MRI topics, with great scientific discussions and valuable networking opportunities throughout the three-day event.
The meeting showcased a diversity of topics within MRI research, with sessions covering neuroscience, oncology, cardiovascular imaging, diffusion MRI, AI-driven image analysis, and ultra-high-field MRI. A strong preclinical presence was maintained throughout the program, highlighting the close connection between methodological innovation and translational research.
Bruker was pleased to contribute to the meeting through an industry presentation, “Advances in Integrated Imaging and Emerging Bruker Technologies.” The session highlighted developments across our preclinical imaging portfolio and showcased applications ranging from organoid and in ovo MRI to abdominal, angiographic, and neuroimaging studies. Recent innovations, including the the new Maxwell 70/22 were covered as well as an overview of Bruker’s continuous education initiatives and training opportunities that are available to all the imaging community.

Japanese Chapter Conference

The ninth annual ISMRM Japanese Chapter coference took place on September 21st in Chiba. This meeting, which was chaired by Dr. Fukunaga from the National Institute for Physiological Sciences was held together with the 52nd annual meeting of the Japanese Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. A highlight was the presentation of the prestigous Seiji Ogawa Prize, named in honor or Seiji Ogawa's ground breaking work in fMRI to Dr. Hiroshi Tagawa from Kyoto University.

German, Swiss, and Austrian Chapter Conference

The ISMRM DACH Chapter Meeting 2026 was held in the historic UNESCO heritage city of Bamberg. This year, the meeting was held in conjunction with the DGMP (the German Society for Medical Physics), expanding the usual repertoire of seminar offerings to radiation therapy. For the first time, Medical Young Investigator Award finalists presented their scientific work with hyperpolarization work form the University of Freiburg taking the prize. The meeting also featured the exciting and forward-looking research by the Gorter Award finalists as well as presentations for advanced MR Sequence technologies, of which a notable presentation from Universität Münster highlighted the use of LDCE-MRI with 17O to detect water transport across the blood brain barrier for CSF homeostasis, as a potential biomarker for Alzheimer's Disease.

British and Irish Chapter Conference

The ISMRM British & Irish Chapter Meeting 2026 once again brought together the UK and Irish MRI community in London this year with more than 270 attendees for a highly engaging scientific and networking event. The meeting opened with a pre-conference workshop led by Gareth Barker (King's College London), who provided an excellent overview of the fundamentals of MRI, attracting both newcomers and experienced researchers interested in strengthening their understanding of MRI principles.

The scientific program showcased a broad range of topics spanning clinical and preclinical MRI, advanced image acquisition methods, AI-based image processing, and emerging hardware developments. Particularly noteworthy was the presentation from UCL demonstrating hyperpolarized xenon lung imaging at 9.4T combined with ¹H ZTE imaging to distinguish inflammation from fibrosis, highlighting the continuing innovation within the UK MRI research community.