For millions of people around the world, magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, remains out of reach. The scanners are large, expensive and energy-intensive, requiring specialized facilities and trained personnel.
SungMin Sohn, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, wants to give more people access to one of medicine’s most powerful diagnostic tools.
Sohn recently received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award, one of the agency’s highest honors for early-career faculty members. The award recognizes researchers who pair innovative scholarship with a strong commitment to education, supporting projects that advance both scientific discovery and student development.
For Sohn, the five-year award will accelerate research to make MRI technology smaller, more affordable and more widely available. The project will also create new opportunities for students to work at the intersection of electrical engineering, biomedical engineering and medicine.
Rethinking how MRI works
MRI scanners create detailed images by transmitting radio-frequency signals into the body and then detect signals emitted in response. Conventional MRI systems alternate between transmitting and receiving because the transmitted signal is far stronger than the one returning from the body.
Sohn’s research challenges that limitation.
His team and collaborators are developing an automated radio-frequency platform capable of transmitting and receiving signals simultaneously through a process known as full-duplex communication. The approach dramatically reduces the amount of radio-frequency power required to operate an MRI system, opening the door to smaller, less expensive scanners.
“It’s similar to noise-canceling headphones,” Sohn says. “We sample the interference and create an opposite signal to cancel it out. That allows us to transmit and receive at the same time.”
The result is lower power requirements that could make MRI systems safer, less costly and easier to deploy outside major hospitals.
“Current MRI systems use very high power,” Sohn says. “If we can reduce that power dramatically, we can make MRI much more accessible.”
Although MRI is considered a standard diagnostic tool in many parts of the world, he notes that access remains limited globally because of the cost and infrastructure required to operate conventional systems. Sohn says that expanding access is the driving force behind the project.
“Our goal is to build compact MRI scanners that can be used in places with limited medical resources,” he says. “We hope they could be deployed in regions where access is much lower, and that images could then be shared with specialists anywhere in the world for diagnosis.”
Building on a growing movement
Portable MRI has become an active area of research, but many existing systems still require significant power to operate. By combining Sohn’s low-power radio-frequency technology with portable MRI platforms, he hopes to help bring portable imaging systems closer to widespread clinical use.
The CAREER Award provides the resources to pursue that vision while expanding collaboration across engineering and medical disciplines.
“This project brings together electrical engineering, biomedical engineering and medicine,” Sohn says. “We’ll collaborate with radiologists and hospitals so we can move the technology closer to real medical applications.”
His laboratory brings together undergraduate and graduate students from both electrical engineering and the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering. Sohn has also developed a new course in bioelectromagnetism to introduce students to MRI technology and its engineering foundations. That interdisciplinary approach reflects his own career path.
Sohn began his doctoral studies in electrical engineering before realizing that MRI systems rely on many of the same radio frequency principles used in wireless communication technologies. Today, he encourages students and fellow early-career researchers to remain open to similar connections.
“I always seek new things,” Sohn says. “I don’t want to limit myself to only electrical engineering. When you explore new areas, you’ll face new challenges, but those challenges can lead to meaningful discoveries.”
Investing in future innovation
Receiving the CAREER Award represents an important milestone, but Sohn sees it primarily as an opportunity to expand the impact of the work. Beyond advancing MRI technology, the principles developed through the project could also influence other biomedical technologies that rely on radio frequency systems, including wearable sensors and implantable medical devices.
“Ultimately, this technology can help increase access to MRI and improve public health,” Sohn says.
Heather Clark, director and Olin Endowed Professor in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering and senior associate dean for engineering integration within the School of Medicine and Medical Engineering at ASU, says Sohn’s approach has significant potential.
“The NSF CAREER Award is one of the nation’s most prestigious honors for early-career faculty, and SungMin’s selection reflects the exceptional originality, rigor and significance of his work,” Clark says. “His approach to dramatically reducing MRI radio frequency power requirements is technically impressive and potentially revolutionary, with the promise of making imaging safer, more affordable and accessible in communities around the world.”
