High-tech at high altitudes: An MRI scanner from Erlangen reaches the Andes

Scanner donated by the winners of the German Future Prize has arrived at a hospital in Peru – three teams from Uniklinikum Erlangen are helping in South America

When Dr. Christine Hauer, Laura Schwarzfärber and Frederic Balling arrive in the city of Curahuasi in the Andes after traveling more than 24 hours, the MRI scanner will already be there. It was already loaded onto a container ship in March 2025 and sent off on its long journey to Peru. Once the senior physician, medical technician for radiology (MTR) and the trainee from Uniklinikum Erlangen arrive, everything will finally be ready for action, after a long period of preparation. As of July, the innovative scanner from Erlangen should be available to significantly improve the health care for the indigenous Quechua people. It is thanks to the winners of the German Future Prize 2023 that the MRI scanner is now available in the mission hospital Diospi Suyana. Prof. Dr. Michael Uder, Director of the Institute of Radiology at Uniklinikum Erlangen, Dr. Stephan Biber and Dr. David Grodzki, both from Siemens Healthineers, decided to donate their prize money of 250,000 euros to purchase a Magnetom Free.Star scanner, their prize-winning invention.

“We developed the MRI system to allow more people across the globe to benefit from this imaging technology,” explained Prof. Uder when making the first symbolic donation in November 2024. “It is an issue that is very close to our hearts, and for us it was only logical that we invest our prize money in a scanner for use in an economically underdeveloped region.” The three prizewinners received financial backing from Siemens Healthineers AG, Siemens AG and Siemens Caring Hands e. V. for the purchase, transport and installation of the scanner. The donation also includes a service contract for ten years. Now, in summer 2025 it is time for the second, “proper” donation: the scanner is to be installed in the hospital and integrated into patient care. Once again, valuable support is on hand from Erlangen: three teams from the Institute of Radiology at Uniklinikum Erlangen are traveling one after another to Peru for one month at a time to help get everything up and running smoothly.

First team is packing their bags

The first team comprises senior physician Dr. Christine Hauer, MTR Laura Schwarzfärber and MTR trainee Frederic Balling. On June 7, 2025, they will say goodbye to their families and set off for South America, to spend the next four weeks getting the scanner up and running and ideally also examining the first patients. “When I heard about the project in 2024, I knew straightaway that I wanted to get involved! I applied that very day,” remembers Dr. Hauer. As well as her expertise as a specialist in radiology, the 38 year old also has the necessary language skills and international experience. At the end of the day, the decision was taken by drawing lots among all the suitable applicants. “I am thrilled that I am able to take part,” says Christine Hauer, who checked with her three children that they would agree to her going before she finally accepted the place. “It is an amazing opportunity and I am excited to meet the Peruvian people. I expect to encounter people with a different approach to life and to experience health care that is quite different to patient care in Germany. It will be a very intense and exciting time, I’m sure.”

Imaging procedures available in the region for the first time

The mission hospital Diospi Suyana specializes in caring for the indigenous Quechua people. Patients come to the hospital from all over the country. “People travel up to 20 hours by bus, with no guarantee that they will actually be treated,” explains Dr. Hauer. The hospital is overwhelmed by the number of people who arrive in the morning. Each day, staff have to draw lots to decide who can be seen.” Until now, no MRI scanner has been available in the Apurímac region in the south of Peru for accurately diagnosing various diseases. “This was one of the reasons why we chose this hospital, coupled with our admiration for the work of the married couple who established and still run the Diospi Suyana Hospital to this day,” explains Prof. Uder. “This was the very reason we developed our Magnetom Free platform: to bring imaging technology to places where it was previously impossible.”

Other teams from Erlangen on site

Transporting high-tech machinery is challenging even on Germany’s well-constructed roads – shipping an MRI scanner over the Atlantic and transporting it into a region in the middle of the Andes is an undertaking of quite a different scale. “It will remain nerve-wracking until the end,” admits Dr. Hauer. “The scanner is approved for operation up to an altitude of 3,000 meters. Curahuasi is situated at 2,688 meters, so just under.“ A service team from Siemens Healthineers is on location to provide support with installing and starting to operate the scanner to ensure the smooth and accurate running of the technology even under these challenging conditions. “We hope that our team will be able to install the scanner successfully and start examining the first patients,” says Christine Hauer. When she leaves on July 10, 2025, she will hand the project over to the second team from the Institute of Radiology at Uniklinikum Erlangen: during their 4 week stay, the doctor Dr. David Schinz and MTR Andrea Mühl will train their Peruvian colleagues in using the scanner. The third and final team consists of the two prizewinners Michael Uder and David Godzki, who will finally hand the scanner over to the hospital.

Diospi Suyana Hospital – located high in the mountains and of crucial importance

A hospital in the middle of the Peruvian mountains – what started out in 2007 as an adventurous project initiated by the German doctors Dr. Martina and Dr. Klaus-Dieter John in a remote region, is now one of the most modern clinics in the state in the South American Andes. Since it was established, Diospi Suyana Hospital has treated over 586,000 patients. The charitable Christian organization is predominantly funded by donations and is much more than a hospital: over the years, it has branched out to include an orthopedic workshop, a school and a media center with its own TV studio and two radio stations. The hospital has become the most important employer in the Apurímac region.

Innovative MRI scanner awarded the German Future Prize in 2023

The Magnetom Free.Star scanner is the result of ten years of pioneering development work. The MRI has been completely revamped in order to break down barriers surrounding the technology. These barriers include factors such as a lack of funding for the construction work required to house a traditional scanner, a lack of availability of liquid helium for cooling the magnets or a lack of trained staff for the complex examinations. Magnetom Free systems have a lower field strength of 0.55 tesla, combined with AI-based image reconstruction for a high diagnostic quality for standard examinations and simplified requirements in the way of infrastructure thanks to the drastically reduced requirement for helium of only 0.7 liters. For their pioneering invention, Dr. Biber, Dr. Grodzki and Prof. Uder were awarded the German Future Prize in 2023.

Further information:

Prof. Dr. Michael Uder
Phone: +49 9131 85 36065
direktion.dr@uk-erlangen.de