25 years MRC Systems GmbH

Innovation, research and technology of the highest standard - in worldwide use and 100% made in Germany

MRC celebrates its birthday! For 25 years now we have been active as a medium-sized company in Heidelberg, Germany, in the field of lasers and medical technology. We develop, produce and sell a wide range of systems with the highest standards. Since our foundation on the 16th of March 1995 we have constantly developed and kept our fingers on the pulse of time, both technically and scientifically. Over the years, an initial group of students from the University of Heidelberg has developed into a company that is considered an innovation leader in various product areas and works close to current science and research. You can find more on our history and the company here. You are also welcome to take a look at our chronicle.

We would like to take our anniversary as an opportunity to take some interesting looks behind the scenes of MRC. Every week we will present a brief fact about MRC, which will give you a small insight into our company history and our success.

Fact of the week

Our anniversary year 2020 was an unusual year in many respects. Globally, it was marked by the Corona pandemic. We held more video conferences than ever before. We established shift work in the spring for the first time in the company's history, so that we would only have to quarantine some of our staff in case of an infection. Fortunately, we have been spared from this (so far). And today, we are sitting down to draw up a hygiene concept for our Christmas party. Despite all this, we can look back on a successful year. Communication with our customers and business partners never broke down. We successfully introduced new products to the market and ended the year with a record turnover. In addition, we wrote more invoices than ever before and, with the goal of a paperless office, sent most of them electronically. As a supplement to the 24th fact, we can also report that for the first time in the company's history, a father and his daughter are working at the MRC at the same time. Thus, in view of the currently rising infection figures in Germany, we are moving closer together without breaking the rules of distance. We hope that one or the other fact has provided you with interesting information, even surprised you, made you smile or at least given you a little insight into our company. We wish you a healthy and happy new year 2021.

More facts

25 years of MRC also means 25 years of world-class. All of the 25 most renowned universities worldwide¹ are among MRC's customers, with some of them having been close partners for many years.
MRC is centrally located in the science city of Heidelberg². Important research institutions such as the university, the university hospitals, the dkfz, the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, the Astronomical Computing Institute and the Technology Park can be reached in just 15 minutes from the MRC.
All 31 in the German Research Association for Neuropathic Pain (DFNS) united research institutions are customers of MRC. Our pinprick stimulators for quantitative sensory testing are explicitly recommended by the DFNS as a reference product.
Two compact laser beam stabilization systems of the MRC take off regularly. Since several years they are installed in helicopters as part of the CHARM (CH4 Atmospheric Remote Monitoring) system, where they stabilize lasers for geological remote sensing from the air.
More than three-quarters of MRC staff have an academic degree. These include mainly engineers in medical engineering, electrical engineering and mechatronics, but also physicists, mathematicians, chemists and economists. All employees have undergone specialist training. We also provide training.
The video cameras of the MRC are used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) up to a field strength of 9.4 Tesla. This corresponds to 195833 times the strength of the earth's magnetic field in Central Europe.
The small portable warning device CardioMan for pacemaker and defibrillator wearers was developed in 2008 by an MRC employee after his mother had difficulties with her pacemaker. Since then, CardioMan has been in daily use at many large companies such as Daimler, Siemens and Bosch, as well as in small craft businesses, where it ensures that users can work safely.
You may be carrying a device manufactured with MRC equipment. The Compact beam stabilizers are regularly used for laser cutting of mobile phone lenses.
PEP is not only the first name of a well-known football coach in Manchester, but also the name of "PinPrick-evoked potentials". With our PinPrick stimulators defined action potentials are triggered in the brain. The duration between the stimulus on the skin and its perception in the brain provides information about the state of the nerves.
Three founders of MRC and their cooperation partners with innovative product ideas have been nominated for the German Future Prize of the Federal President.
An exciting field of application for MR-compatible video cameras is so-called hyper-scanning, in which two people lie in magnetic resonance tomographs and the face of the other person is shown to them. In this way, the thinking processes in the brain can be observed while reading facial expressions.
MRC was also ahead of its time with some ideas. For example, the founding project "Stereotactic Laser Neurosurgery" used picosecond lasers for tissue ablation and a miniaturized confocal microscope for the detection of blood vessels in the human brain. While MRC product ideas did not gain widespread acceptance at the turn of the millennium, the technologies have now found their niches. The business areas of video cameras and beam stabilisation also emerged from the founding project.
Each of the well over 2,000 PinPrick needles produced to date is measured to the micrometer in a specially developed optical measuring station. This is done with special illumination technology and a high-resolution camera.
One third of our employees have completed a bachelor or master thesis at MRC. Due to MRC's close ties with various universities and colleges, we are close to the engineering generation of tomorrow. This gives us the opportunity to attract talented young people for a career at MRC.
MRC had to change a model of the MR-compatible video cameras after it had bought out the world market on a chip built into it.
MRC is also active in photodynamic tumour therapy (PDT). In PDT, a substance that accumulates in the tumour is locally activated by illumination with laser light. The company has developed a platform for calculating light distributions in the brain and can thus control the "dose distribution" of the active substance.
The beam stabilisation of the MRC is also extremely stable itself. It has survived a controlled fall from a drop tower with measurements in weightlessness without damage.
The Cardioman hides a complex technology in its inconspicuous housing. To measure the complete frequency range of possible electromagnetic interference sources of pacemakers safely, six antennas are installed in a very small space.
The MRC is and has been involved in more than 20 European and national research projects with over 50 project partners from research, clinic and industry. This makes us one of the many companies that actively promote Germany as a location for business and international research with new ideas.
In addition to the PinPrick stimulators, von-Frey filaments and thermal stimulators from Medoc, MRC develops and distributes other pain stimulators, such as blade stimulators to simulate borderline pain, a high-frequency stimulation electrode to simulate the "maximum imaginable pain" and a stimulation laser. Thus, the MRC serves the entire range of QST stimulators.
For reasons of space, MRC's first mechanical workshop was housed in a ladies' toilet.
Several of MRC's laser beam stabilization systems, which were introduced to the market 20 years ago, are still in use in the anniversary year.
MRC employees are environmentally aware. A good half of all employees travel to work by bicycle and public transport.
You can see from the children that you are getting older... More than a quarter of the employees at MRC are now younger than the company itself. Thus, even after 25 years, MRC remains a fresh and future-oriented technology company.
Our anniversary year 2020 was an unusual year in many respects. Globally, it was marked by the Corona pandemic. We held more video conferences than ever before. We established shift work in the spring for the first time in the company's history, so that we would only have to quarantine some of our staff in case of an infection. Fortunately, we have been spared from this (so far). And today, we are sitting down to draw up a hygiene concept for our Christmas party. Despite all this, we can look back on a successful year. Communication with our customers and business partners never broke down. We successfully introduced new products to the market and ended the year with a record turnover. In addition, we wrote more invoices than ever before and, with the goal of a paperless office, sent most of them electronically. As a supplement to the 24th fact, we can also report that for the first time in the company's history, a father and his daughter are working at the MRC at the same time. Thus, in view of the currently rising infection figures in Germany, we are moving closer together without breaking the rules of distance. We hope that one or the other fact has provided you with interesting information, even surprised you, made you smile or at least given you a little insight into our company. We wish you a healthy and happy new year 2021.

Prize draw 25 years MRC - terminated -

On the occassion of our 25th anniversary on the 6th of December we will draw 10 winners from all our business partners participating in the competition. After the draw, you can choose from one of the following prizes.