A.1. Mission

The MRI platform of the Fondation Campus Biotech Geneva (FCBG) is a research platform dedicated to high-risk and high-yield MRI studies with strong technological, methodological, and/or analytical components.

A.2. Management

The MRI Platform is managed by the Platform Head and the staff, under the guidance of the Platform Advisory Committee (PAC) which includes faculties of the EPFL, University of Geneva, and of the Geneva University Hospital (HUG). PAC members are appointed by the FCBG Academic Council. The staff members as well as the faculty advisor are listed in Appendix B.1.

A.3. Study Eligibility

The platform will support research projects according to its mission as defined above. Living animal studies are not permitted at the MRI Platform.

All human studies must have a valid Ethics Committee Approval. It is the responsibility of the Principal Investigator (PI) to ensure that a valid Ethics Committee Approval is in place, and that all aspects of the study are performed consistently with that approval.

In case of limited resources, the PAC will assign the access rules for the ongoing studies, giving priority to projects proposed by principal investigators (PIs) affiliated to any of the FCBG funding institutions (i.e., UNIGE, EPFL, and HUG).

A.4. Getting an approval to conduct a study

The objective of this application procedure is providing cutting-edge, safe, and efficient experimental conditions for all the research conducted at the platform.

To conduct research at the MRI Platform, the research team must:

• Submit the project application via the online Application Form (https://mri.fcbg.ch/form) and return the pdf signed by the PI.
• Provide any additional information required by the PAC or the Platform Head (e.g., discussion at the R&D meeting; proof of Insurance). This applies also to ongoing projects.
• Present the study at the Project Presentation Seminar.
• Participate in any required training such as MRI safety.

A.5. Training

The access to the scanner room can be granted only after having passed the safety training. FCBG reserves the right to refuse or revoke the access to the MRI platform at any time.

A.6. Responsibilities

The employer of the PI bears the general responsibility for the study.

The PI bears the responsibility of ensuring that the study is conducted consistently with the decisions and approvals of the ethical committee.

All the sequences that have been purchased with the scanner (product sequences) can be freely used. If a study requires the use of non-product sequences (i.e. C2P or WIP sequences), the PI is responsible for obtaining from the developers the legal permission to use those sequences for the aim of the project.

The investigators are responsible for:

• their study's participants safety and supervision within the platform.
• the availability of any materials required by the study but not provided by the platform.
• Session punctuality (timely arrival, setup, cleanup, and data storage). Unforeseen events may occur (e.g., equipment failure, volunteer delays). While flexibility is expected from all parties, an overtime exceeding 15 minutes is not permitted.
• any damage resulting from the use of customer software or hardware (e.g., sequences or coils).
• the correct use of elevated privileges (e.g., admin password) granted on the platform computers (including the MRI Consoles).

The Operator is responsible for ensuring MRI safety during sessions including the participant's safety.

A.7. Equipment

It is the responsibility of the investigators to ensure on-time arrival of research subjects, their suitability for study, and the availability of any non-standard materials (hardware, coils, software, pulse sequences, ancillary equipment) required for the study.

Please use the equipment carefully and follow the training instructions. If you encounter any issue or find the equipment in an unexpected state, please notify the platform staff via email promptly (mri@fcbg.ch). You will not be held accountable for equipment failures.

Research involving hardware modifications or installation of non-standard equipment requires the prior approval of the Head of the MRI Platform.

A.8. Platform safety

Guidelines

The investigators running the experiment at the MRI Platform must follow the safety procedures and recommendations they learned during their safety training. If any doubt persists, the investigator should ask guidance from the MRI staff or other trained operators.

Two trained people (one Operator plus at least one Assistant or Operator in Training) must always be present during scanning. During technologist supported hours, the MRI technologist may be the second person. During off hours, each group must have two investigators in the scanner bay.

Incidental findings

Incidental findings are a rare but a known risk for imaging studies in healthy subjects. Swissethics guidelines can be found here: https://swissethics.ch/assets/pos_papiere_leitfaden/richtlinie_zufallsbefunden_f.pdf

The PIs are asked to obtain agreement of a physician trained in medical imaging to be the referent medical imaging specialist on their study in case of suspicion of incidental findings.

In case of suspicion of incidental findings, the MRI staff will send the images to the Radiology Department of the HUG together with the name of the referent medical imaging specialist. The Radiologist will communicate the results of the evaluation as well as the recommendations to the medical referent of the study which in turn will communicate them to the study subject (if needed).

The researcher should never discuss the potential abnormality with the study subject before the medical specialist has been consulted and a medical professional has explained the situation to the study subject. The researcher may or may not decide to terminate the study. In either case, care should be taken not to alert the study subject.

A.9. User Fees

The fees for the use of the MRI platform for Swiss academic centers are detailed in https://platforms.fcbg.ch/fees. The use of the MRI is charged by the reserved time (in steps of 15 minutes).

International academic centers, start-ups and industrial partners shall ask for a quote via email to the Head of the MRI Platform (mri@fcbg.ch).

In the event of changes in the fees, the PAC will discuss case-by-case whether to propose to the FCBG direction to grant an exception (e.g. a continuity of the previous fees) to the ongoing studies.

Pilot hours: to pilot new experiments, researchers have up to 4 participants (healthy and adults) free of charge. Filling the protocol application form is nonetheless required for pilot studies. Additional hours can be granted by the PAC upon written and justified request from the PI.

Cancellations

Reservations can be cancelled without a fee up to 24 hours prior to the start of the allotted time slot by deleting the reservation in the booking system. After this deadline, the reserved time will be charged at the rate of 50% unless it is not used by another study.

Billing

Invoices are sent to researchers every three months at the beginning of March, June, September, and December. Charges are based on the number of hours reserved on the calendar system of the MRI scanner. In case of pending payment for prior invoices, the FCBG may revoke the access to the MRI platform.

Operator training

Operator credentials are specific for the 3T and the 7T scanner. Users that are certified for one of the FCBG scanners need to be trained and pass the accreditation exam to be allowed to scan independently on the other scanner. No fees are applied for this second certification.

A.10. Booking system

The platform equipment can be booked via the Campus Biotech Calpendo system.

Researchers can book the equipment only after the study has been approved by the PAC and they have attended the MRI security training. The platform resources can only be used for the purposes of the designated project code. Please, book the resource before using the scanner, and remember to allocate sufficient time for equipment cleanup within your slot.

A.11. Data management

Data collection

Subject's identity must be coded. It is the responsibility of the researchers to keep the link between the code and the participant's identity. The name of the subject must never be stored with the data or the metadata.

Data collection and documentation

Personal data are acquired only for safety reasons through the MRI safety screening forms, which are stored within the MRI Platform for 10 years, and at the end of this period the forms will be destroyed. These data include relevant medical history (see MRI safety screening form), height, weight, sex, and date of birth of the participants.

MRI data include in their header information on participant's height, weight, sex, and date of birth. Subject's identity is anonymized by a subject code. MRI data are stored on the FCBG PACS server for 10 years, after which data will be deleted. The MRI images are downloaded from the PACS server to a directory of the FCBG storage system, and it is the responsibility of the researcher to copy the images from the FCBG storage system to their data system.

Other data may be acquired in parallel to the imaging data (e.g., log of the stimulation, responses of the participants, eye-tracking and physiological data). Researchers are responsible for the correct data anonymization, collection, and management.

Important: The FCBG storage system is only for temporary transfer of data to/from the MRI platform. Data should not be stored ad vitam eternam on this server. A specific size will be allowed to the PI folder at the beginning of the collaboration. Investigators are responsible for backing up their data in his own institution's servers and cleaning the folder. The FCBG is not responsible for the loss of data that would not have been backed up by the study investigator.

Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights

The data and the results of the research are property of the PI. The FCBG does not claim any property rights on the data or the results.

Policies for data sharing and reuse

From the FCBG perspective the PI is the owner of the data and hence can share are reuse the data. If a late download of the data is necessary for sharing purposes, the FCBG will remit the data only to the PI staff upon written request of the PI.

A.12. Authorship and Acknowledgments

The FCBG adheres to the basic rules of Scientific Integrity regarding authorship of scholar work, in accordance with the Swiss Academy of Science regulations available at https://www.samw.ch/en/Projects/Overview-ofprojects/Scientific-integrity.html

In order to be considered as an author, a researcher must fulfil the following criteria:

• having made an essential contribution to the planning, carrying out, evaluation and verification of the research work;
• having participated in the writing of the manuscript;
• and having approved the final version of the manuscript.

Other people who have contributed to the study, but only partially fulfil the above criteria, must be acknowledged ("Acknowledgements"), but are not designated as authors.

Acknowledgements

If the results are presented in articles, publications, projects, presentations, the following text must be added in the 'Acknowledgments' section of the publication:

For studies that used the 3T scanner

This study was supported by the MRI Platform of the Fondation Campus Biotech Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland co-founded and supported by Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), University of Geneva (UNIGE), and Geneva University Hospitals (HUG).

For studies that used the 7T scanner

We acknowledge the MRI Platform of the FCBG (Fondation Campus Biotech Geneva) and the CIBM Center for Biomedical Imaging for providing expertise and resources to conduct this study.

B. Appendix

B.1. Management and Staff

Platform Advisory Committee

• Prof. Olaf Blanke
• Prof. Valentina Borghesani
• Prof. Frédéric Grouiller
• Prof. Dimitrios Karampinos
• Prof. Andreas Kleinschmidt
• Prof. Karl-Olof Lovblad
• Dr. Roberto Martuzzi
• Dr. Olivier Reynaud
• Prof. Jean-Paul Vallée
• Prof. Dimitri Van De Ville
• Prof. Patrik Vuilleumier

MRI platform staff

MRI Platform Head:

• Dr. Roberto Martuzzi

MRI Staff:

• Ms. Anne-Cerise Bernard
• Ms. Loan Mattera
• Ms. Nathalie Philippe

B.2. MRI use fares

The fees for the use of the MRI platform for Swiss academic centers are detailed in https://mri.fcbg.ch/fees. The use of the MRI is charged by the reserved time (in steps of 15 minutes).

Pilot hours: to pilot new experiments, researchers have up to 4 participants (healthy and adults) free of charge. Filling the protocol application form is nonetheless required for pilot studies. Additional hours can be granted by the Steering Committee upon a written and justified request from the PI.

Late cancellation will be charged at the rate of 50% unless the reserved time is not used by another study.

Use and training fares

The MRI Security training is free of charge.

Operator training: the users that want to become operators need to pass a specific training.

The costs of the MRI operator training are (before taxes):

• CHF 1500 Regular fare
• CHF 500 Discount fare for Ph.D. Students
• CHF 500 Short training (for people that are operators in other centers)

Costs will be credited after completion of the training and a certificate will be issued by the MRI Safety Officer.