MRF Simulation for Quantitative MRI of Iron-Oxide Nanoparticle Contrast Agents

Summary:
This internship offers the opportunity to work at the interface of MRI physics, nanotechnology, and computational imaging. The focus is on simulating Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF) sequences for iron-oxide nanoparticles — widely used as MRI contrast agents and increasingly considered for theranostic applications (imaging + phototherapy).

The project involves:

• Prototyping MRF sequences using open-source simulation frameworks,

• Building a dictionary to capture nanoparticle-induced T1, T2, and T2* effects,

• Testing basic dictionary-matching reconstruction to estimate nanoparticle concentration,

• Optional in-vitro experiments on tubes with standard relaxometry (T1/T2/T2*) to characterize nanoparticles.

This internship will lay the foundation for a potential PhD continuation, including in-vitro and cellular MRF imaging, multimodal correlation with confocal microscopy, and exploration of advanced AI-based reconstruction methods.