Minisymposium of NMR Spectroscopy in Stará Lesná 2026

From September 3–4, 2026, researchers from the National NMR Centre (www.nmr.sk) met in Stará Lesná. The Centre connects magnetic resonance facilities across Slovakia to promote MR techniques, offer expert services and training, and make NMR spectroscopy and imaging available for research and commercial use.

The main goal of the event was to share updates, exchange ideas on ongoing projects, and present new results. The talks covered a wide range of uses for both MR spectroscopy and MR imaging.

Our institute presented an overview of non-invasive proton and phosphorus MR spectroscopy methods for studying skeletal muscle, which allow detailed monitoring of metabolic flexibility, fat metabolism, intracellular pH, and mitochondrial energy (M. Maková et al.). Another talk from our team introduced a deep learning method using convolutional neural networks and 3D U-Net architecture to automatically segment knee cartilage from 3D MRI data (A. Krafčík et al.).

The event showed the rich variety of NMR research in Slovakia and opened up new opportunities for future teamwork.