Prof. Eva Quante-Brandt, Bremen’s Senator for Education and Science visited the Fraunhofer Institute for Medical Image Computing MEVIS on Wednesday, 25 March. 

In her greeting speech, the Senator talked about current research projects and the upcoming construction of a new Fraunhofer MEVIS building. The tight connection between the Institute and the Universities in the State – University of Bremen, University of Applied Science Bremerhaven and the private Jacobs University, was also addressed. As an example thereof, a project in the scope of the University of Bremen Excellence Initiative was mentioned. The project received a three-year funding as a Creative Unit that develops innovative technologies to support the work of surgeons in the operating room. In the future, during a surgery surgeons should be able to navigate devices via speech or gestures. An intelligent lighting system should ensure that procedures are optimally illuminated without the need of moving the lamps manually.

Another topic of the visit was the involvement of Fraunhofer MEVIS in research projects on national level. The institute plays an important role in Germany’s largest health study – the National Cohort. The study seeks to explain how diseases like diabetes, cancer or dementia arise by systematic examination of MRI images of several tens of thousands subjects. Fraunhofer MEVIS ensures the countrywide availability of the MRI images – an important prerequisite for the success of the study.

During a round trip of the Institute, the Senator was able to test an interactive demo-station herself. It shows how a minimally invasive, audio-guided procedure can be planned on a computer and subsequently performed.