Health Sciences SC dedicates new brain imaging center
Contributed by USC News

Healthcare and University leaders representing Health Sciences South Carolina dedicated a new brain imaging center at Palmetto Health Richland April 5, 2006, and showed off the center's powerful new scanner, the most advanced of its kind in the world.

Named the McCausland Center for Brain Imaging, the center honors USC alumnus and donor Peter J. McCausland and is the first one built since HSSC was created in 2004. It represents the first research investment made by the collaborative to its endowed chair program in brain imaging, a $12 million statewide health sciences research initiative funded by public and private money to explore brain imaging, memory and attention, detection of deception, and brain stroke.

The $12 million price tag includes $5 million in state funds matched by $5 million in private funding. That amount comprises $1.75 million from McCausland, $250,000 from Edward B. Cantey Jr, a USC graduate and a former engineer with Pfizer Pharmaceuticals in New York, and $1.5 million each from Palmetto Health and Greenville Hospital System. An additional $2 million was received from a federal grant.

The centerpiece is a high-field strength, 3 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner, one of only two in the state, that will be used by USC researchers and Palmetto Health clinicians for clinical research and patient care. The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) houses the state's other 3T MRI scanner. Kester S. Freeman Jr., Palmetto Health CEO, said, "This center is important not only because it is the only 3 Tesla MRI in the Midlands or because it is a true partnership where researchers and clinicians are working together on clinical diagnoses to help our community now and in the future, but because it's the first footprint of Health Sciences South Carolina. I believe that this is the first of many projects that will be brought to fruition through this remarkable collaborative vision."