[BIC-announce] A BIC year in review

[Sylvain Baillet, Dr]

Dear BIC Community:

I hope everyone is enjoying the nice summer days.

I thought this would be timely to look back at the past year of your favorite brain imaging platform. There have been indeed quite a few changes and important news and events to reflect on, before gearing up for the upcoming academic year.

New faculty & staff:
We are very fortunate to have Prof Rick Hoge and Prof Gassan Massarweh onboard as new leaders of the MRI and Radiochemistry/Cyclotron Units, respectively. The Radiochemistry/PET Unit has also recruited two new RAs (Dr. Iness Hammami & Mrs Qian Ying (Sandy) Li), following the departure of Mr. Wajih Ben Tahar and Mr. Jie Zhang.
New faculty members are being recruited at the MNI (thanks in part to major ameliorations of BIC finances - see below), with at least 3 imaging experts (users/methods) on the radar.

Retirement:
Mr. André Cormier has retired after 30+ years of service at the BIC MRI Unit: thank you and good luck, André!  Best wishes also to Ellie Tobman (Admin Assistant to the MRS Unit), for her retirement.

Departures:
Dr. Barry Bedell has now joined the MUHC-RI. Small-animal imaging is now under Rick’s (MRI) and Dr. Jean-Paul Soucy (PET) leaderships. Dr. Andrew Reader has moved back to his home country, taking a position at King’s College (London). Andrew remains adjunct faculty with the BIC/McGill.

BIC30:
We have celebrated in February our first 30 years as the McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, with 350 guests and international keynote speakers. It’s been a fun event for which we raised $40,000 from sponsors. Check out the picture gallery: https://www.mcgill.ca/bic/about-us/gallery (also features great BIC memorabilia). A big thank-you again to all helpers and co-organizers!

Website:
We have a new website (https://www.mcgill.ca/bic/): thanks to the great help and contributions from many. Let me know if you’d like to have a page under your name/lab added. The previous, complementary wiki (bic.mni.mcgill.ca<http://bic.mni.mcgill.ca>) will continue to remain online.

Governance:
An elected BIC Council has been formed. Check out who your reps are and drop a message to raise a point to be discussed at the next Council meeting (meets in alternance with BIC faculty meetings): https://www.mcgill.ca/bic/about-us/governance .

Finances:
It is no secret that the past 2 years have seen substantial reorganization in our financial structure, to consolidate and streamline our operations.
I want to thank all our staff for their dedication, patience and passion in this period of turbulence and uncertainty. Although the situation remains fragile, our finances have considerably improved:
- Overall, we have reduced our operating expenses by $1.5M over the past 18 months, and increased our revenues by $200,000. We now recover 85% of our operating costs from scanning fees and PET tracer production (was 55% back in 2013) - rest is direct support from the MNI.
- We have recovered $470,000 in outstanding payments that remained due to the BIC. It hasn’t bee a fun experience for anyone, but it paid off. Thank you all for your patience and special thanks to those who contributed, and kudos to Helene Day (BIC Finance Manager) for her perseverance and dedication. An additional $225,000 in outstanding payments will be collected in the present financial year.
- Taken together, we have raised and collected $2.67M over the past 12 months towards BIC operations. This includes a $1-M donation from the R.H. Webster Family Foundation (to be announced officially shortly) towards renovations and upgrades of the PET/Cyclotron Unit, and the creation of a BIC open data warehouse to centralize and curate all data collected on our scanners (more on that this coming winter)
- PET usage has increased +60% over the past year. Further, we have mobilized the PET user community (MNI, McGill, Douglas, Jewish General Hospital) to contribute $200,000 towards the purchase of a new synthesis module for the production of highly specific 11C tracers, which are in high demand. The module is being installed and tested now.
- MRI usage has increased +30% over last semester
- With 650 sessions booked, MEG (last Core Unit installed in 2011) is now the second busiest scanner at the BIC (3T MRI is first)
- These good numbers have contributed to the MNI now recruiting 6 new Faculty members (2 more than the 4 positions initially scheduled).

Major grant obtained:
- $17.2M were allocated by CFI, Quebec and McGill towards the purchase of the first large-bore 7-T MRI scanner in the Province. Congrats again to Dr. Amir Shmuel for leading the successful application. The project has now entered its execution phase, under the leadership of Dr. Hoge. Dr. Shmuel is Chairman of the Scientific Committee and Co-director of this new 7-T platform. Installation is anticipated by end of 2016/early 2017.

Coming ahead:
- New, convenient and robust web-based booking and billing software developed in collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine is under deployment
- Upgrade of our 3T to Prisma is scheduled in the coming year
- BIC lectures series resume Sept 14 @ 1pm (de Grandpré) - new special topics series on the radar (more on that later)
- and certainly much more…

Finally, a committee will be formed in the early fall to search for a permanent Director of the BIC.

With all that, I’d like to wish you all again a great, restful summertime.

See you all on Sept 14 @ 1pm (De Grandpré) for the BIC General Assembly.

Cheers,

Sylvain.

Sylvain Baillet, PhD

Professor, Neurology, Neurosurgery & Biomedical Engineering
Acting Director, McConnell Brain Imaging Centre
MNI Killam and FRQS Senior Scholar
Montreal Neurological Institute
McGill University
http://mcgill.ca/bic

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