The Siemens 3T Trio is a full body MRI scanner. The Beckman Institute just recently acquired it. Today, the machine was brought to the basement of the Beckman building and we were fortunate enough to have some free time to glimpsed part of the process.The scanner was brought in through a hole they have in the back of the building. It had rained the night before, so the ground around the hole was a little soggy. More importantly, they had to move fast because more rain was coming. The movers had to remove the heavy covers on the hole, lift the magnet bore and lower it into the basement, where there is a trolley for them to push the magnet into its final place. The movers took a break halfway because the rain did come anyway, before they could finish, but they continued later. As far as I know, the scanner is in the basement now, just waiting to be tested and used!
This is a full-body scanner, compared to the head-only scanner 3T Allegra. It should provide more uniform signal, although the 3T Allegra is sometimes better for certain sequences, or so I hear. So we'll see which one shines. They will move the 3T Allegra, head-only scanner, which is right now at the BIC down south, up into the Beckman basement as well, once this Trio is fully functional. There will still be about a month or so of testing and installation before we can begin to use it.
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