Overview

Dear colleagues,

The technology of functional renal MRI has matured significantly over the past decade, and is currently showing great promise to impact on clinical management of patients with kidney disease, and to provide new tools to support drug development in nephrology. Translating these novel methods into tools for clinical practice will increasingly require international collaboration to reduce the fragmentation in the methodology, facilitate transfer of know-how between research institutes, economise on research efforts by sharing of resources and databases, improve reproducibility and practicality in clinical routine, and provide evidence of clinical utility through multicentre clinical studies.

The objective of this conference is to create the foundations for an international scientific community in the field of functional renal MRI, and catalyse the setup of international collaborations addressing the key future challenges of this technology. The meeting will focus on all functional techniques including more established methods (DWI/DTI, DCE, BOLD, ASL) and more novel developments (IVIM, Sodium, T1rho, MT, elastography, …).

The meeting is targeted at a broad audience of scientists interested in functional renal MRI, including MR physics, radiology, nephrology, physiology, biology, computer science, as well as representatives from the private sector. The meeting will be an opportunity for the groups involved in that research to build up collaborations through fruitful discussions and debates with experts and audience.

The format of the meeting is designed to stimulate discussion with a focus on open problems and unmet needs. Prominent researchers in the field will be invited to present their views on the current state-of-the-art in terms of basic methodology and level of preclinical/clinical evidence, and to identify key challenges, open problems and unmet clinical needs. Each session will conclude with a debate between panel and audience on future steps towards resolving the issues.

We look forward to welcoming you in Bordeaux!

Nicolas Grenier and Steven Sourbron