| One of the inventors of magnetic resonance imaging Date of Birth: 16.03.1936 Country: USA |
Raymond Vahan Damadian was born into an Armenian family in Melville, New York, USA. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1956 and a doctorate in medicine from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City in 1960. Prior to his medical career, Damadian was also an accomplished artist and violinist.
In 1971, while a graduate student at Harvard, Damadian reported in the journal Science that tumors and normal tissues exhibited different responses to nuclear magnetic resonance. He first proposed using this mechanism for the early detection of cancer. However, his initial experiments were inconclusive. In 1974, Damadian obtained the first patent in the field of magnetic resonance imaging for the diagnosis of malignant tumors. The patent was for using MRI to "view the interior of a human body to locate cancer," but the specific method of creating the image was not defined.
In 1978, Damadian founded FONAR to manufacture MRI scanners. However, Damadian's "focused field" technology proved less effective than the gradient approach of Mansfield and Lauterbur, and sales were disappointing. Damadian later collaborated with implantable cardiac pacemaker inventor Wilson Greatbatch to develop an MRI-compatible pacemaker. Damadian invented the "open-bore" MRI system and owned 15 MRI centers in the United States.
In 1988, Damadian received the National Medal of Technology. His original "whole-body" scanner is now on display at the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio. He has received honorary degrees from several universities in the United States. In 2001, he was awarded the Lemelson-MIT Prize as "the individual inventor of the MRI scanner."
In 2003, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Peter Mansfield and Paul Lauterbur for their work on MRI. Although the Nobel rules allow for the prize to be shared among three or fewer individuals, Damadian was not named a recipient. Controversy over the relative contributions of various individuals to the development of MRI had been ongoing for years prior to the Nobel announcement. In 2002, Damadian stated, "If I had not been born, would MRI exist? I don't think so. But if Lauterbur had not existed, would I have gotten it sooner or later? Yes!"
The New York Times reported: "The issue has been a subject of debate between Dr. Damadian and Dr. Lauterbur, and has been simmering in the academic community for years. There was some fear that the Nobel committee would not make any award at all – the Swedes have a reputation for shying away from contentious discoveries. Dr. Lauterbur, 74, is in poor health, and the committee may have felt that his prize, which cannot be given posthumously, had to be awarded now or never."
Damadian was supported by a number of prominent scientists, including John T. Watson, Eugene Feigelson, Adrian Parseghian, David Stark, and James Mattson. Some commentators suggested that Damadian was denied the Nobel Prize due to his young-earth creationist beliefs, although evolutionary biologist Michael Ruse argued that "any such restriction is unacceptable."