In 1946 Edward Purcell (1912-1977) and Felix Bloch (1905-1983) independently discovered Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) which is the basis for Magnetic Resonace Imaging (MRI). In 1952 Purcell and Block shared the Nobel Price in Physics for their discovery.
Peter Mansfield (1933–2017) was an English physicist and a Professor at the University of Nottingham shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Paul Lauterbur, for discoveries concerning (MRI). His Echo Planar Imaging (EPI) method allowed later techniques like fMRI, diffusion ,DTI and perfusion to be developed.
Raymond Damadian (1936-2022) an American physician and inventor of the first MRI machine. In a 1971 paper in the journal of Science professor Damadian reported that tumors can be detected in vivo by nuclear magnetic resonance because of much longer relaxation times (which means the return of a perturbed system into equilibrium) than normal tissues and suggested that these differences can be used to detect cancers. Damadian perfomed the first full body scan in 1977.
Professor Paul C Lauterbur (1929-2007) was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2003 in Physiology or Medicine for his ground breaking research in the department of Chemistry at Stony Brook University that led to the invention of magnetic resonance imaging.
The above post is dedicated to my colleagues and prominent neuro-radiologists, Drs Don Chakeres, Eric Bourekas, Greg Christoforidis who worked with me during my tenure as Radiology Chairman at Ohio State University and Stathis Gotsis PhD whith whom I collaborated at the University of Illinois in Chicago and who introduced NMR in Greece.
