
The Future is Now: Quantum Sensing Technology Applied to MRI will Change Healthcare As We Know It
Specially Appointed Associate Professor (Full-Time) Makoto Negoro Institute for Open and Transdisciplinary Research Initiatives
The global competition over space development, represented by the Apollo Program, stimulated the creation of numerous advanced technologies. Resembling such a course of technological development, the technologies cultivated through the efforts for the development of quantum computers will benefit mankind in numerous aspects. The technology for increasing the sensitivity of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), an imaging modality now commonly used during healthcare, is one such example. Japan is said to lead the world in terms of the percentage of medical facilities equipped with an MRI apparatus designed to take images of deep areas of the human body such as the brain, blood vessels and organs. It has been playing a significant role in diagnosis at many hospitals. With MRI, electromagnetic waves are applied to the water molecules of the body and the weak signals returning from the hydrogen atoms are analyzed. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) actively used for chemical analysis also functions under the same principle. With the conventional apparatus for MRI, however, the sensitivity is not high because the signals emitted from the atomic nucleus are weak. At the Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology, Osaka University (QIQB), Specially Appointed Associate Professor (Full-time) Makoto Negoro (hereafter called “Associate Professor Negoro”) and his colleagues succeeded in increasing the signal intensity by approximately 10,000-times at room temperature, thus cultivating a path for the development of next-generation MRI technology. Associate Professor Negoro expresses his anticipation, saying: “This will enable real-time assessment of the metabolic status, showing which parts of the body are being favorably affected by a given drug and how such efficacy is manifested. This is sure to significantly change healthcare.” The technology used for this kind of MRI has markedly advanced during the course of quantum computer development. The technology for precise control of the quantum state is called “Quantum Technology 2.0”, and it has a broad-range potential of application to quantum simulation, quantum communications and quantum sensing.