M-CUBE will have high scientific, economic and societal impacts. The antennas based on metamaterials, as a proof of concept, will become a promising alternative to parallel transmission. Nowadays, only 60 ultra-high field MRI systems exist in the word. It is very unfortunate considering that this type of device is one of the only ways to precociously diagnose very serious neurodegenerative pathologies such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s disease. It is also a chance to strongly improve specificity for very prominent cancers like prostate cancer (second most common cancer in men worldwide), for which actual tool at lower fields failed or need extensive multi-parametric solutions to discriminate malign and benign forms. Thanks to our solution, we hope that doctors will get a viable Whole Body (WB) imaging solution which will offer the opportunity to scan any organs at UHF with all the benefit expected, including “head to toe” scan, essential tool for non-invasive cancer detection, staging and follow up (in contrast to more classic ionizing PET solution). These novel and unique information relevant to various diseases will strongly improve patient care. On the short run, using ultra high field MRI involves increased costs for manufacturing the RF antennas compared to low field MRI. For instance, a parallel transmission system costs around 1 million euros. This price tag includes the manufacturing cost of antennas complicated associated electronics, and SAR monitoring systems. On the long run, the use of metamaterials will significantly reduce these costs. Indeed, using passive system allows to reduce the number of antennas, power consumption and to simplify electronics. These improvements will lead to a price drop of at least 50 percent. In addition, these advances can benefit to all MRIs systems (including low field). M-Cube relies on the use of 7T MRI scanners manufactured by the two main European MRI manufacturers, namely Siemens and Philips. The improvement resulting from M-Cube will reinforce the European industrial leadership in MRI and associated RF systems. For the last decade, the MRI market has been steadily increasing and, according to market analysts, should continue to grow at a very good pace in the next decade. For instance, Siemens stated that MRI scanner sells have increased by 50,4% from 2009 to 2013 (from 2439 to 3668 millions of dollars) and MRI scanners sold units have also strongly increased by 44,6% on the same period (from 3173 to 4587 units). In 2013 the MRI market represented 3,7 billions of dollars. The antennas incorporated in MRI machines represented 30% of this market. M-Cube project targets MRI antennas market and intend to reinforce Europe in a very competitive position at the global level. The participation of two SMEs provides the consortium a market-oriented vision for the expected innovations, along with a middle and long-term economic strategy. In order to enhance the relevance of this proposal, an advisory group is associated to this consortium. This advisory group is composed by: Paul Lecoq (senior physicist at CERN in the Experimental Physics division), Richard Craster (professor of applied mathematics, and Head of the department of mathematics at Imperial College) and Stephane Lehericy (Doctor, Professor neuroradiology, Director CENIR).
