SINAPSE, the Scottish Imaging Network, is one of several pooling groups set up by the Scottish Funding Council, with matching support from Universities, and in our case from the NHS via the Chief Scientist Office, writes Professor David Wyper, CEO SINAPSE.

Other pools include SUPA for physics, ScotChem for chemistry, SULSA for life sciences and SICSA for informatics and computer science. The objective of pooling is to showcase the best in Scotland and promote inter-university partnership working. The Universities participating in SINAPSE are Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews and Stirling. The technologies that bring us together are X-ray Computed Tomography, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Positron Emission Tomography, Medical Ultrasound and Electrophysiology.

SINAPSE Mark 1 was hosted by the University of Edinburgh from 2007 until 2014. We have now embarked on SINAPSE Mark 2. This is hosted by the University of Glasgow and will run from January 2015 to December 2019. SUPA is also hosted in Glasgow.

The Scottish Funding Council encourages pools to seize opportunities to work together and we have managed to get of to a flying start. SUPA and SINAPSE secured support from STFC (the Science and Technology Facilities Council) to host a series of workshops where physicists can explore the medical potential of some of there technologies. Below we can see Professor Sandy Cochrane at one of the workshops at the Royal Society of Edinburgh explaining some potential applications of ultrasound, under the watchful eye of Lord Kelvin.  Sandy will be coming to the University of Glasgow later this year.

Image of Prof Sandy Cochrane at one of the workshops at the Royal Society of Edinburgh explaining some potential applications of ultrasound.The Glasgow lead for SINAPSE is Professor Keith Muir who is based at the new South Glasgow University Hospital. The activities of SINAPSE can be followed at www.sinapse.ac.uk.

First published: 7 April 2015

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