Paul Lauterbur won the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 2003 Photo: University of Illinois

Lauterbur was among the first scientists to use nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the study of molecules, solutions and solids. In the early 1970s he began applying the same technology to biological organisms. As in other NMR experiments, Lauterbur put his subjects - he first used a clam - inside a powerful magnetic field and collected the resulting radio signals that were emitted by atomic nuclei within the tissues. He discovered that using a static magnetic field and varying the intensity of a second magnetic field across his subjects yielded clearer signals, allowing better imaging of different tissues.

Mansfield, a physicist, improved the utilization of magnetic gradients and showed how the resulting signals could be mathematically analyzed.

"Through his life and his work, Paul Lauterbur exemplified the ideals of the University of Illinois - creativity, passion, tenacity, and most importantly, commitment to mankind," said Richard Herman, the chancellor of the Urbana campus. "Paul's influence is felt around the world every day, every time an MRI saves the life of a daughter or a son, a mother or a father. He will be greatly missed."

Lauterbur, who was born May 6, 1929, in Sidney, Ohio, earned a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh in 1962 and a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1951 from Case Institute of Technology, Cleveland.

He was a professor in the department of chemistry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook from 1963 to 1985, when he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois College of Medicine. In his 22 years at the university, Lauterbur also had appointments or affiliations with the Center for Advanced Study, the Beckman Institute, the department of electrical and computer engineering and the department of physiology and biophysics. At the time of his death, he was a Center for Advanced Study professor of chemistry, biophysics and computational biology and bioengineering. He also was the Distinguished University Professor of Medical Information Sciences.

A member of the faculty at Illinois since 1985, Lauterbur shared the 2003 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine with Sir Peter Mansfield of the University of Nottingham in England "for their discoveries concerning Magnetic Resonance Imaging".

The announcement was controversial for some. On the occasion, FONAR Corp. in Melville, NY, which owns a key patent on MRI machines, released a statement claiming that its president and founder, Raymond V. Damadian, MD had been bypassed for the award "despite his widely acknowledged seminal discovery in 1970 that originated MRI". Lauterbur and Damadian had shared an award several years earlier. In 1988, they were jointly offered the National Medal of Technology by President Ronald Reagan for "their independent contributions in conceiving and developing the application of magnetic resonance technology to medical uses, including whole-body scanning and diagnostic imaging".

A committee, Friends of Raymond Damadian, was formed to fund a campaign against the decision. As part of the campaign, the group ran a full-page advertisement in three newspapers - Washington Post, The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Titled "The shameful wrong that must be righted", the ad was an open letter demanding that the Nobel Committee changed its mind and inciting readers to participate in their quest.

In the letter, Dr. Damadian himself claims that that the Nobel decision was a wrong done not only to him but to his fellow medical doctors. "The MRI is emphatically an MD's invention. Although the two PhDs who have been named for the prize - one a chemist and the other a physicist - made later contributions to MRI technology, as have many others since then, there is no way, outside of outright deception, to ascribe primary credit for the invention of the MRI to two scientists who merely imagined improved ways to display the image of the signals I discovered", he wrote. "I believe it is outrageously unjust that the Nobel should decide to exclude from its award the MD genesis of MRI. And I am not the only missing MD in this blighted picture. We are all the missing MDs."

Dr. Damadian's measures were strongly self-promoting, and they worked. Opinions may still be divided over his entitlement to a share (or the whole) of the Nobel award, but the press gave his claim wide coverage and he gained support from different sources. So is the battle finally settled?

When approached by Medicexchange, Dan Culver, spokesman for FONAR, refused to comment on the award. He limited himself to say that the group sent their sympathy to the researcher's family and asked, "Let's not make a controversy out of it on this day". Several years after the event, however, FONAR's website still features a link to the 'Nobel controversy' story on the home page (http://www.fonar.com/home.htm). Sources: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, FONAR

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed