Raymond V. Damadian

Professor Raymond Vahan Damadian (born March 16 1936), is an American pioneer of magnetic resonance imaging.

Biography

Damadian was born in New York. He is of Melville, New York, a scientist of Armenian descent, who earned his BS in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin in 1956, and an M.D. degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City in 1960.

In a 1971 paper, he reported that tumors and normal tissue responded differently to nuclear magnetic resonance ("NMR") in the journal Science. He suggested that these differences could be used to diagnose cancer, though later research would find that not all cancers responded in the way he had predicted. Additionally, some of his initial methods would turn out to be flawed. Nonetheless, in 1974, he patented the design and use of NMR (US Patent 3,789,832 [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=3,789,832.WKU.&OS=PN/3,789,832&RS=PN/3,789,832) for detecting cancer. Note that this patent did not describe a method for generating pictures.

After Paul Lauterbur, Peter Mansfield, and others found a way of using NMR to generate images, Damadian used their work to produce the first full magnetic resonance imaging ("MRI") scan of the human body in 1977. In 1978 he formed his own company, FONAR, for the production of MRI scanners, and in 1980, he produced the first commercial one. Damadian's method of generating images proved unsuccesful - the machine, named "Indomitable", failed to sell and FONAR eventually abandoned Damadian's "focused field" approach in favour of Lauterbur and Mansfield's methods. ^*

He later collaborated with Wilson Greatbach, one early developer of the implantable pacemaker, to develop a MRI-compatible pacemaker.

In 2003, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Paul Lauterbur and Sir Peter Mansfield for their discoveries related to MRI. Although Nobel rules allowed for the award to be shared with a third party, Damadian was not given the prize. A disappointed Damadian took out large, expensive advertisements in a number of international newspapers protesting his exclusion from the award. Several MRI experts and university professors were quoted in the ads expressing their disappointment and dismay at the decision. ^* Others point out that while Damadian had hypothesized that NMR relaxation times might be used to detect cancer, he did not develop (nor did he suggest) a way of creating images. Since the Nobel Prize was awarded to Paul Lauterbur and Sir Peter Mansfield for the develop of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Damadian's exclusion makes more sense.

In recording the history of MRI, Mattson and Simon (1996) credit Damadian with describing the concept of whole-body NMR scanning, as well as discovering the NMR tissue relaxation differences that made this feasible. In 2001, the Lemelson-MIT program bestowed its Lifetime Achievement Award on Dr. Damadian as "the man who invented the MRI scanner" ^*. The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia gave its recognition of Damadian's work on MRI with the Bower Award in Business Leadership. He was also named Knights of Vartan 2003 "Man of the Year". He received a National Medal of Technology in 1988 and was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1989.

Damadian is a controversial figure in NMR circles, not least for his exuberant behaviour at conferences. He is also highly religious Christian and a young earth creationist.^*" target="_blank" >and evolutionary biologists [http://www.metanexus.net/metanexus_online/show_article.asp?8759 have claimed that he was not awarded a Nobel Prize because of this position.

Alternate POV:

To oversymplify: Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging, now shortened to "Magnetic Resonance Imaging" or "MRI", exploits the fact that interactions with surrounding molecules in tissues changes the way atomic nuclei "relax" after being lined up in a strong magnetic field. Further, this can be measured and expressed as different relaxation times (T1 and T2) in different tissues. Classic proton MRI looks at relaxation times of the nuclei of the hydrogen atoms (protons) in tissue water. That is, it reflects local differences in the enviornment of tissue water and/or differences in tissue water content.

The developmemt of practical proton MRI in the 1970's depended upon two convergent lines of research. The first of these involved improvements in existing NMR technology that resulted in a practical way of imaging small local differences in relaxation times.

E.g., in the 1950's Herman Y. Carr developed the "gradient" technique and used this to produce a crude one-dimensional NMR image . See Carr's letter to Physics Today. Over a decade later, Lauderbur applied this technique to two-dimensional imaging in living tissues. This was also made possible by Mansfield's work on transforming the raw data collected into a practical image and prompted by Damadian's demonstration of NMR "contrast". In turn, Mansfield's work was drew upon developments in computor-aided X-Ray tomography, which also depends on subtle differences in "contrast". For this work, Lauderbur and Mansfield received the 2003 Noble Prize in Medicine and Physiology.

The second convergent field involved using NMR to probe the local tissue enviornment of tissue water. Early investigators included Freeman Cope, Raymond Damadian, Gilbert Ling, and Carton Hazelwood. For an important early paper and links to references, see Cope's 1969 publication "Nuclear magnetic resonance evidence using D2O for structured water in muscle and brain". Many of these reseachers freely collaborated with each other. E.g., see Damadian's tribute to Freeman Cope ("In memoriam--Freeman Widener Cope--1930-1982), Physiol Chem Phys. 1982;14(5):411-4.)

This work was initially-prompted by Ling's still-controversial suggestion that local changes in "water structure" figure fundamentally in neoplasia, as well as many physiological processes . Unfortunately, many later observers confute this with MRI imaging per se. This confusion gave rise to the "urban legend" that, in chasing "cancer", Damadian and other early tissue NMR researchers inexplicably missed also using measurable differences in the local enviornment of water protons as an imaging modality. This is belied by the patent record, among other things. Imaging is a separate subject from using magnetic resonance to look at structured water in neoplasia.

In any case, the possibility that "water structure" in cancerous and normal tissues might be different provided the rationale for Damadian to compare proton relaxation times in normal and neoplastic tissue. In turn, Damadian's discovery of such tissue differences in proton relaxation times (anticipated by Cope's work with deuterons or "heavy hydrogen", noted above) stimulated two distinct areas of research:

1) NMR Imaging itself, which he himself pursued and patented.

2) NMR as a means of diagnosing cancer (e.g., as a quick screen for surgical biopies and a suppliment to frozen sectioning, as well as possibly for in vivo screening). While now recognized as a dead-end (at least for the moment), quick cancer diagnosis using NMR stood out as a real medical need and an obtainable goal at the time.

In retrospect, only imaging worked out. While real, proton relaxation-time differences proved too non-specific for the direct diagnosis of neoplasia. On the other hand, diagnosing cancer is still the single major use for MRI scans. Damadian's discovery of such tissue differences in proton relaxation times propelled him and Lauderbur to separately develop imaging methodologies. Possibly de novo, Lauderbur stumbled upon Carr's earlier gradient method for imaging and translated this into a practical methodology, still in use. Damadian used an alternative methodology which worked, but was not as effective. That is, Damadian's imaging technology proved a technological dead-end, with the usual "for the moment" reservation.

So why the fuss, if Damadian did not directly develop modern MRI? Simply stated, Damadian discovered the MRI "contrast". From then on, arguando, the development of imaging was inevitable and just a matter of engineering-- as events proved, even using Carr's decades-old imaging technology. On the basis of his patenting of differential relaxation times in tissues as the basis for imaging, Damadian later won a major patent-infringement case against GE which was affirmed on appeal. So his fundamental role in this technology has been examined at length. Another way to think of it-- likely, a century from now, MRI will use a different technology from that of Lauderbur and Mansfield. But, it will still measure what Damadian discovered.

Similarly, if, as there seems to be general agreement, he made the fundamental discovery that made MRI possible, why was Damadian arguably excluded from the Nobel? Treating this as a hypothetical: The most obvious answer is his creationist views and the natural reluctance of the Nobel committee to give these the bully pulpit of a Noble Prize. But this is probably not the only reason. E.g., "Structured water" had and continues to have a taint that absolutely transcends the fact that it is arguably the basis for most MRI. See, e.g., this paper. Similarly, with his readily-expressed peculiar views, Damadian was always generically an outsider. Pproctor 19:29, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

External links

Reference

James Mattson and Merrill Simon. The Pioneers of NMR and Magnetic Resonance in Medicine: The Story of MRI. Jericho & New York: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1996. ISBN 0961924314.

Raymond Damadian

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Reference