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Following her emergence as winner of the $100,000 Nigeria Prize for Science and Innovation (NPSI), artificial intelligence researcher Mary-Brenda Akoda is targeting a national pilot of her AI-powered MRI technology, GenMRI, which could reduce scan time by up to 90 per cent.
Akoda, 28, founder of GenScan AI, disclosed this during an engagement session with journalists in Lagos on Thursday, saying the award had helped bring her innovation to the attention of the Federal Government.
She said the Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Alausa, had pledged to bring the Minister of Health and the Chairman of the Committee of Chief Medical Directors and Medical Directors of Federal Tertiary Hospitals in Nigeria, Professor Saad Ahmed, into discussions around the technology.
Akoda also said Professor Ahmed was issuing a letter of intent towards national pilot programmes on behalf of the committee.
“So, we are in the starting process of that, and I do believe that they will make good on what they’ve promised to do,” she said.
GenMRI is the flagship technology of GenScan AI and uses artificial intelligence to reconstruct MRI images from accelerated scans, allowing patients to spend significantly less time inside MRI scanners without requiring new MRI hardware.
Akoda said the technology was developed partly in response to a personal experience involving an elderly loved one who suffered a stroke about three years ago.
“Every second counts. The difference between life and death can be how quickly a person gets diagnosed,” she said.
According to her, the experience exposed the challenges created by long queues, limited imaging infrastructure and the time required to conduct MRI examinations.
She said MRI scans could take between 15 or 20 minutes and one-and-a-half hours, depending on the examination, while patients must remain still throughout the process.
“If they move, they have to repeat the scan,” she said.
Akoda said the cost of MRI machines further limits the ability of healthcare providers to expand capacity, noting that a high-quality scanner could cost between $1.5 million and $3.5 million or more.
Rather than requiring hospitals to immediately purchase additional scanners, she said GenMRI could increase the effective capacity of existing compatible machines by reducing the time required for each scan.
“It reduces MRI scan time by up to 90 per cent. It is also extendable to CT scans and other imaging modalities. And this happens on existing scanners,” she said.
She said the technology could enable healthcare providers to scan more patients, reduce waiting times and get patients to diagnosis and treatment sooner.
Akoda said her long-term ambition was to reduce MRI scan times to between two and five minutes.
“I like to say it’s basically having an MRI scan take as little time as it takes to make coffee — in as little as two to five minutes,” she said.
She added that the technology could eventually be extended beyond MRI to CT and PET scans.
“Our grand vision is that no one should suffer or die because of a delayed diagnosis,” she said.
However, Akoda stressed that the technology is not yet ready for immediate deployment in hospitals, as it must first obtain regulatory approval and undergo broader clinical validation.
“For medical AI, it’s classified as software as a medical device. So, even though it’s not hardware, it still needs to go through regulatory approval and broader clinical validation before it gets to deployment,” she said.
She said GenScan AI was currently working with clinical partners towards meeting the requirements for regulatory approval.
Akoda said the company was targeting the second half of 2027 for regulatory approval and possible deployment, although the timeline would depend on funding, clinical partners and regulatory processes.
“Our target is by the second half of next year. All this depends on funders. It depends on clinical partners,” she said.
She explained that bringing medical technology to market could be slow because of fragmented systems and the need to gather sufficient clinical evidence for regulators.
According to her, GenScan AI was also seeking international funding and had backing from international organisations.
The company is headquartered in the United Kingdom, where it recently won an Entrepreneurs Award in Social Innovation and is part of the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme.
Akoda said Nigeria remained a priority market, even as GenScan AI continued to pursue opportunities internationally.
“It would be preferable for Nigeria to be one of the first, yes, to be a priority instead of an afterthought because, of course, we would want that to be the case,” she said.
The researcher also disclosed that GenMRI had been validated across more than 8,800 MRI images.
According to her, the technology achieved up to 99.7 per cent similarity with conventional MRI images across different levels of acceleration, ranging from four-times to ten-times speed-up.
She said the company subsequently conducted an early independent blinded assessment involving a consultant radiologist at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust in the United Kingdom.
The radiologist was provided with MRI images without being told which were conventional scans and which were produced using the GenMRI accelerated technology.
According to Akoda, the radiologist rated the GenMRI images as diagnostically equivalent to conventional MRI images in all the cases assessed, despite the technology achieving up to a ten-times acceleration.
“That basically proved that we had overcome that hurdle of ensuring that it wasn’t hallucinating and that it was anchored in the patient’s data,” she said.
On intellectual property protection, Akoda disclosed that GenScan AI had already filed a U.S. provisional patent for the technology.
She said the company was working with its lawyers to determine which aspects of the technology should be protected through patents and which should be maintained through copyright, trade secrets and trademarks.
On the potential cost of adopting GenMRI, Akoda said the company had not yet finalised its pricing structure.
She explained that the cost would depend on several factors, including the location and type of healthcare facility.
“We obviously cannot charge a hospital in the U.S. the same thing as we charge a hospital in Nigeria,” she said.
She stressed, however, that regulatory approval and clinical validation remained the immediate priorities before commercial deployment and pricing could be finalised.
Akoda, who is the first woman and youngest winner of the NPSI and the first Gen Z recipient of the prize, said the recognition could inspire more young people, particularly women, to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
“It’s something that they can see and know that the Nigeria Prize for Science and Innovation is not just about professors or the number of years you’ve been working,” she said.
“It’s more about the work you are doing, building innovations that impact other people’s lives and getting recognition for it.”
Akoda emerged winner of the 2026 NPSI from a record 237 entries submitted for the competition.
She is expected to receive the $100,000 prize at the Grand Award Night scheduled for Friday, October 9, 2026, in Lagos.
For Akoda, the award is not the end of the journey but a springboard for taking GenMRI through regulatory approval, clinical validation and eventual deployment, with the broader goal of making medical imaging faster and improving access to timely diagnosis.
