The CHIME project was actively designed by both scientific groups and user groups, representing both the patients’ perspective and the industrial interests. The following leading industrial partners in MRI, pharma and image analysis software (including AI) are involved in CHIME and have formed a strong multidisciplinary consortium with complementary but synergistic expertise in MRI (hemodynamics, metabolism, clearance), data science, AI-based computational modeling, cerebrovascular biology, neurometabolism, neurology, neuroradiology, and relevant users (MRI and pharmaceutical industry, patient organizations). 

Academic Centers

Erasmus Medical Centre 

Leiden University Medical Center

University Medical Center Utrecht

Companies

Merck & Co., Inc. Merck, a global healthcare company, is known as MSD outside North America. MSD is a research‐intensive biopharmaceutical company dedicated to providing solutions for many diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease. There is an ongoing collaboration with Merck in a currently running phase I trial for 13C‐MRS to measure glutamate and glutamine cycling in the brain,16 which was the basis for their interest in collaborating on the CHIME project as well. Merck is keen to collaborate in the CHIME project, since the ability to image brain metabolism non‐invasively may be used to observe early effects of their medication, and is expected to be highly valuable for clinical trials. 

Philips Medical Systems B.V. Royal Philips is a leading health technology company focused on improving people’s health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. As such, Philips will be a crucial stakeholder for the effective uptake of the outputs of CHIME. The UMCU and LUMC have premium on‐site technical support from Philips and, since the installation of the 7T MR systems, actively collaborate with Philips in projects on novel high‐field developments. 

Pie Medical Imaging Pie Medical Imaging (PMI) is a Dutch SME and develops and commercializes state‐of‐the‐art software for quantitative analysis and visualization of cardiovascular medical images. PMI advised on how new quantitative data such as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) mobility data could be visualized.

WaveTronica is a Dutch SME founded in 2018, as a spin‐off company from the UMCU, and bridges the gap between researchers needing beyond state‐of‐the‐art MRI and the large companies (i.e., GE, Siemens, Philips) that provide clinical MRI systems. WaveTronica develops MRI hardware that will enable the sensitivity and detail needed in CHIME.

Stakeholders

The Brain Foundation (Hersenstichting)is a Dutch non‐profit organization with the mission to facilitate the prevention and treatment of brain diseases, and to ensure that people with brain diseases can participate in society. They are interested in CHIME because the technologies to be developed, promise to pave the way for new treatments, and to allow timely diagnosis of brain disease and more effective monitoring of disease progression, all of which are at the core of their mission. 

Alzheimer Netherlands is a Dutch non‐profit organization with the aim to work towards a future without dementia and improved quality of life for people with dementia and their relatives. They actively support research that is in line with their ambition. 

Health Innovation Netherlands (HI‐NL) is a multi‐stakeholder infrastructure via which patients, healthcare providers, methodologists, CE‐experts, entrepreneurs, insurers, investors, and regulatory authorities can contribute to bringing better medical devices to users faster.