QuantuMRI Inauguration Workshop

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About QuantuMRI

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In January 2026 The Novo Nordic Interdisciplinary Synergy Programme 2025 granted Professor Sune Jespersen from CFIN, Aarhus University DKK 19,450,066 to head the project: 
"Quantum-sensed Magnetic Resonance Imaging (QuantuMRI): Imaging beyond the voxel".

The project is a collaboration between Sune Jespersen and researchers Amit Finkler and Lucio Frydman from Israel, and Gonzalo Agustín Álvarez from Argentina.

On Monday 30th November 2026 the project will mark its official start with the QuantuMRI Inauguration Workshop, held at the Hejmdal Meeting and Conference Centre at Aarhus University.
The Inauguration event will highlight a program of invited speakers within the quantum sensing field.

See program …

A quantum-enhanced MRI platform for cellular-scale readout 

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MRI is a minimally invasive tool for deep-tissue imaging in living organisms, but its typical spatial resolution (0.1–1 mm) is insufficient to resolve important cellular and sub-cellular changes such as those underlying cancer, inflammation, and neurodegeneration. QuantuMRI add resses this critical limitation by integrating nanoscale quantum sensing with macroscopic MRI, enabling the readout of metabolic, morphological, and functional tissue properties at unprecedented resolution.

To achieve this, we propose a novel imaging platform where quantum information from nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in functionalized nanodiamonds (NDs) —which can sense important cellular parameters including pH, temperature, ion concentration, and membrane permeability— is amplified, and transferred to surrounding water protons via magnetization saturation-transfer mechanisms. This bridging between the NV’s nano/microscopic sensing and MRI’s voxel-scale signals will be realized at low magnetic fields and enhanced through AI-based denoising and miniaturized detection technologies, which are currently transforming low-field MRI. 

The project builds upon multiple lines of preliminary research from our own and from other groups, evidencing that QuantuMRI’s key building blocks—NV-based sensing, electron hyperpolarization, nuclear resonance shifts, functionalized targeting, magnetization transfer, and advanced image readout—can be robustly implemented. The high-risk/high-gain innovation lies in their integration into a scalable platform for quantum-enhanced MRI. 

By establishing this new class of imaging, QuantuMRI will provide deep, specific insights into tissue microstructure and metabolism in living systems, fundamentally advance our understanding of disease, enable earlier and more precise diagnostics across biomedical disciplines, and define a new paradigm for deep tissue quantum sensing.