Raymond Vahan Damadian (March 16, 1936 – August 3, 2022) was an American physician, medical practitioner, and inventor of an NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) scanning machine.
Damadian's research into
sodium
Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na (from Latin ''natrium'') and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable iso ...
and
potassium
Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K (from Neo-Latin ''kalium'') and atomic number19. Potassium is a silvery-white metal that is soft enough to be cut with a knife with little force. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmosphe ...
in living cells led him to his first experiments with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) which caused him to first propose the MR body scanner in 1969. Damadian discovered that
tumor
A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...
s and normal tissue can be distinguished in vivo by
nuclear magnetic resonance
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a physical phenomenon in which nuclei in a strong constant magnetic field are perturbed by a weak oscillating magnetic field (in the near field) and respond by producing an electromagnetic signal with a ...
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
. Damadian invented an apparatus and method to use NMR safely and accurately to scan the human body, a method now well known as
magnetic resonance imaging
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio wave ...
(MRI).
Damadian received several prizes. In 2001, the Lemelson-MIT Prize Program bestowed its $100,000 Lifetime Achievement Award on Damadian as "the man who invented the MRI scanner."Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award on Dr. Damadian as "the man who invented the MRI scanner" /ref> He went on to collaborate with
Wilson Greatbach
Wilson Greatbatch (September 6, 1919 – September 27, 2011) was an American engineer and pioneering inventor. He held more than 325 patents and was a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and a recipient of the Lemelson–MIT Prize ...
, one early developer of the implantable pacemaker, to develop an MRI-compatible pacemaker.
The Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memoria ...
in Philadelphia gave its recognition of Damadian's work on MRI with the
Bower Award
The Franklin Institute Awards (or Benjamin Franklin Medal) is an American science and engineering award presented by the Franklin Institute, a science museum in Philadelphia. The Franklin Institute awards comprises the Benjamin Franklin Medals ...
in Business Leadership. He was also named Knights of Vartan 2003 "Man of the Year". He received a
National Medal of Technology
The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development ...
in 1988 and was inducted into the
National Inventors Hall of Fame
The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also opera ...
in 1989.
Biography
Early life
Damadian was born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, to an
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
-French family, Vahan and Odette (née Yazedjian). He earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from the
University of Wisconsin–Madison
A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...
in 1956, and an M.D. degree from the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a research-intensive medical school located in the Morris Park neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. Founded in 1953, Einstein operates as an independent degree-granting institution as part of t ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 1960. He studied the
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
at
Juilliard
The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most elit ...
for 8 years, and played in Junior
Davis Cup
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organis ...
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
competitions.Chuvala, Bob Looking Right Through You Crosswalk.com, Christianity Today International, January 1, 1997.
He met his future wife, Donna Terry, while he had a job as a tennis coach. She invited him to the 1957
Billy Graham
William Franklin Graham Jr. (November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018) was an American evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s. He was a prominent evangelical Christi ...
crusade at
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylva ...
, and he responded to the
altar call
An altar call is a tradition in some Christian churches in which those who wish to make a new spiritual commitment to Jesus Christ are invited to come forward publicly. It is so named because the supplicants gather at the altar located at the fro ...
. Raymond and Donna married a year after he finished medical school, and they had three children. Raymond said that he first became interested in detecting cancer when, as a boy of 10, he saw his maternal grandmother, with whom he was very close, die painfully of
breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a re ...
.
Magnetic resonance imaging
Damadian's early work on NMR concerned investigating potassium ions inside cells.Cope, F. and Damadian, R., "Cell potassium by 39K spin echo nuclear magnetic resonance", ''Nature'' 228(5266):76–77, October 3, 1970 , doi:10.1038/228076a0. He found that the potassium relaxation times were much shorter compared with aqueous solutions of potassium ions. This suggested that potassium was not free but complexed to 'fixed-charge' counter-ions, as he had previously determined.Damadian, R., "Ion Exchange in ''Escherichia coli:'' Potassium-Binding Proteins", ''Science'' 165(3888):79–81, July 4, 1969 , doi:10.1126/science.165.3888.79.
He and other researchers independently investigated the signals of 1H NMR in cells, and found that the relaxation times were much shorter than in distilled water. This was consistent with ordering of a large part of the water by
adsorption
Adsorption is the adhesion of atoms, ions or molecules from a gas, liquid or dissolved solid to a surface. This process creates a film of the ''adsorbate'' on the surface of the ''adsorbent''. This process differs from absorption, in which a f ...
onto
macromolecular
A macromolecule is a very large molecule important to biophysical processes, such as a protein or nucleic acid. It is composed of thousands of covalently bonded atoms. Many macromolecules are polymers of smaller molecules called monomers. The ...
surfaces. Damadian predicted that cancerous cells would have longer relaxation times, both because of the disordering of malignant cells and because of their elevated potassium levels, since the potassium ions would be 'structure-breaking' to the ordered water fraction.
In a 1971 paper in the journal ''
Science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
'',Damadian, R. V. "Tumor Detection by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance", ''Science'' 171(3976):1151–1153, March 19, 1971 , doi:10.1126/science.171.3976.1151.
SUNY Downstate Medical Center
SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University (Downstate) is a public medical school and hospital in Brooklyn, New York. It is the southernmost member of the State University of New York (SUNY) system and the only academic medical center for health e ...
professor Damadian reported that
tumor
A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...
s can be detected in vivo by
nuclear magnetic resonance
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a physical phenomenon in which nuclei in a strong constant magnetic field are perturbed by a weak oscillating magnetic field (in the near field) and respond by producing an electromagnetic signal with a ...
(NMR) because of much longer relaxation times than normal tissue. He suggested that these differences could be used to detect
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
, even in the early stages where it would be most treatable, though later research would find that these differences, while real, are too variable for diagnostic purposes. However, Damadian in his seminal paper claimed only that his method was a ''detection'' tool, making no claim about being a diagnostic tool, but intended that it would provide a non-invasive way of detecting cancers and monitoring the effectiveness of their therapy.
In 1974, he received the first patent in the field of MRI when he patented the concept of NMR for detecting cancer after filing an application in 1972. As the
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
notes, "The patent included the idea of using NMR to 'scan' the human body to locate cancerous tissue." However, it did not describe a method for generating pictures from such a scan or precisely how such a scan might be done. However, Damadian's recognition that NMR relaxation time can be used to distinguish different tissue types and malignant tissue is what gives MRI its contrast to tissue types.
In the 1950s,
Herman Carr
Herman Y. Carr (November 28, 1924 – April 9, 2008), who published as H. Y. Carr, was an American physicist and pioneer of magnetic resonance imaging.
Carr was born in Alliance, Ohio where he was an Alliance High School graduate in January 1943 ...
reported creating a one-dimensional magnetic resonance (MR) image. Prompted by Damadian's report on the potential medical uses of NMR,
Paul Lauterbur
Paul Christian Lauterbur (May 6, 1929 – March 27, 2007) was an American chemist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2003 with Peter Mansfield for his work which made the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) poss ...
expanded on Carr's technique and developed a way to generate the first MRI images, in 2D and 3D, using gradients.
Peter Mansfield
Sir Peter Mansfield (9 October 1933 – 8 February 2017) was an English physicist who was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Paul Lauterbur, for discoveries concerning Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Mansfie ...
from the
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...
then developed a mathematical technique that would allow scans to take seconds rather than hours and produce clearer images than Lauterbur had. While Lauterbur and Mansfield focused on animals and human limbs, Damadian built the first full-body MRI machine and produced the first full
magnetic resonance imaging
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio wave ...
("MRI") scan of the human body, albeit using a "focused field" technique that differs considerably from modern imaging.
According to a ''
Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' article, Damadian's initial methods were flawed for practical use, relying on a point-by-point scan of the entire body and using relaxation rates, which turned out to not be an effective indicator of cancerous tissue. However, the same article pointed out, "Nevertheless, his observation of T1 and T2 differences in cancerous tissue was a Eureka moment for
Paul Lauterbur
Paul Christian Lauterbur (May 6, 1929 – March 27, 2007) was an American chemist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2003 with Peter Mansfield for his work which made the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) poss ...
." Furthermore, Damadian's seminal paper documented in its Table 2 that T1 relaxation times were different, beyond experimental uncertainty, across all his samples over different healthy tissues: rectus muscle, liver, stomach, small intestine, kidney, and brain. This showed the way to accurate imaging of the body's soft tissues for the first time; X-ray imaging was severely deficient for soft tissue analysis because the difference in absorption was so small (<4%).
So when in the court case Fonar v. General Electric, GE's attorneys made the same claim that relaxations times were also prolonged in non-cancerous tissue, so were not a good diagnostic, Fonar's attorneys responded that it was unfair to punish Damadian because his methods detected even ''more'' features than he had intended. Indeed, even today, 90% of
MRI scans
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio waves ...
on patients produce images that are relaxation dependent, either T1- or T2-dependent images.
First human MRI body scan
On July 3, 1977, the first MRI body exam was performed on a human beingDamadian R. V., Goldsmith M., and Minkoff L., "NMR in cancer: XVI. FONAR image of the live human body", ''Physiol. Chem. Phys.'' 9(1):97–100, 1977. (the first human scan was performed by Peter Mansfield's team in
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...
a year earlier, on fellow author Andrew Maudsley's finger). It took almost five hours to produce one image: a 106-
voxel
In 3D computer graphics, a voxel represents a value on a regular grid in three-dimensional space. As with pixels in a 2D bitmap, voxels themselves do not typically have their position (i.e. coordinates) explicitly encoded with their values. Ins ...
point-by-point scan of Larry Minkoff's
thorax
The thorax or chest is a part of the anatomy of humans, mammals, and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main divisions of the cre ...
. The images were rudimentary by modern standards. Damadian, along with colleagues Larry Minkoff and Michael Goldsmith took seven years to reach this point. They named their original machine "Indomitable" to capture the spirit of their struggle to do what many said could not be done, though no systems would ever use Damadian's method. His technique of imaging was never made into a practically usable method and has therefore never been used in MR imaging as we know it today.
His patent followed on the heels of rumors already floating throughout the scientific community of Lauterbur's proposed idea of using NMR ''in vivo'' (still in the human body, an imaging device). However, in 1969, Damadian had previously proposed NMR as a method for external scanning of internal cancers in the body, i.e. ''in vivo'':
:I am very much interested in the potential of NMR
spectroscopy
Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...
for early non-destructive detection of internal malignancies. … I will make every effort myself, and through collaborators, to establish that all tumors can be recognized by their potassium relaxation times or H2O-proton spectra and proceed with the development of instrumentation and probes that can be used to scan the human body externally for early signs of malignancy. Detection of internal tumors during the earliest states of their genesis should bring us very close to the total eradication of the disease.
Though it would later turn out to be irreproducible, in his 1971 ''Science'' paper, Damadian showed different NMR signals for tumors and different tissue types:
:In principle, nuclear magnetic resonance MRtechniques combine many of the desirable features of an external probe for the detection of internal cancer.
This was clearly influential, as Lauterbur wrote in 1986:
: … the attention of the medical community was first attracted by the report of Damadian that some animal tumors have remarkably long water proton relaxation times.
: … even long normal tissues differed markedly among themselves in NMR relaxation times, and I wondered whether there might be some way to noninvasively map out such quantities within the body.Lauterbur, P. C. "Cancer detection by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Zeugmatographic Imaging", ''Cancer'' 57:1899–1904, May 15, 1986 , doi:10.1002/1097-0142(19860515)57:10<1899::AID-CNCR2820571002>3.0.CO;2-4.
Thus it was the discovery of strongly variant relaxation times that led to Lauterbur's quest to represent these relaxation time differences graphically. Without these differences, unknown until Damadian's work, there would be nothing to make an image with. Hence a book on MRI history, which included chapters on both Damadian and Lauterbur, Chapter 8 entitled, "Raymond V. Damadian: Originator of the Concept of Whole-Body NMR Scanning (MRI) and Discoverer of the NMR Tissue Relaxation Differences That Made It Possible."Mattson, J. and Simon, M., ''The Pioneers of NMR and Magnetic Resonance in Medicine: The Story of MRI'', Bar-Ilan University Press, Jericho, New York, 1996. The book pointed out the importance of both men:
:Because of the contributions of Dr.
Raymond Damadian and Dr. Paul Lauterbur, magnetic resonance imaging has become the most powerful and reliable diagnostic tool in medicine. …
:Millions of people the world over enjoy a higher quality of life and many lives have been saved, thanks to the contributions of Damadian and Lauterbur.
:NMR scanning resulted from two essential steps. They were taken by the two great MRI pioneers of this volume, Dr. Raymond Damadian and Dr. Paul Lauterbur. Dr. Damadian provided the first step, the discovery of tissue NMR signal differences from which the image is made and the first concept of an NMR body scanner that would utilize these signal differences to detect disease in the human body. Dr. Lauterbur provided the next step of visualizing these signal differences as an image and supplied the first method for acquiring these signals at practical speeds. It does not seem likely that MRI could have come to pass without the key steps contributed by both scientists.
:Without Damadian's discovery, it could not be known that serious diseases like cancer could be detected by an NMR scanner or that tissue NMR signals possessed sufficient contrast to create medically useful images. Without Lauterbur's contribution, development of a practical method for visualizing these signal differences as an image might have occurred much less efficiently. Moreover, the incredible amount of courage and pugnacity shown by Damadian, working alone with only two students, without any consistent granting, thus leading him to do most of the development of his system as a
self-made man
"Self-made man" is a classic phrase coined on February 2, 1842 by Henry Clay in the United States Senate, to describe individuals whose success lay within the individuals themselves, not with outside conditions. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Foun ...
learning when required, electronics, machining, welding and many other technologies in order to built his first prototype, is exemplary for any researcher. This have to be compared with the working conditions of Lauterbur or Mansfield, both working with comfortable fundings in spacious laboratories with many colleagues and students. At least from the point of view of the merit, the work of Damadian, indeed, is considerable. …
:Recognizing their achievements, the
President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
awarded the nation's highest honor in technology, the
National Medal of Technology
The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development ...
, jointly to Dr. Damadian and Dr. Lauterbur for the development of MRI. In presenting the award on July 15, 1988, President
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
cited both scientists 'for their independent contributions in conceiving and developing the application of magnetic resonance technology to medical uses including whole-body scanning and diagnostic imaging.
Damadian's machine is now in the
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
. As late as 1982, there were a handful of MRI scanners in the entire United States; today there are thousands.
Fonar Corporation
In 1978, Damadian formed his own company, Fonar (which stood for "Field Focused Nuclear Magnetic Resonance"), for the production of MRI scanners, and in 1980, he produced the first commercial one. Damadian's "focused field" technology proved significantly less efficient and slower than Lauterbur's gradient approach. His scanner, named "Indomitable," failed to sell. Fonar eventually abandoned Damadian's technique in favor of the methods adopted by Lauterbur and Mansfield. Damadian and Fonar enforced the
royalties
A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...
on patents held by Damadian. They settled with many large companies, but a case against
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
went to the
Federal Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (in case citations, Fed. Cir. or C.A.F.C.) is a United States court of appeals that has special appellate jurisdiction over certain types of specialized cases in the U.S. federal court ...
, which upheld a $129 million ruling against GE for violation of Damadian's patents. Damadian said that the judgment money was all put back into Fonar for research and development purposes.
Damadian was the company's largest shareholder, with 8% of stock worth $6.5 million. Despite owning only 8% of the stock, he maintained almost 100% control of the company through a separate class of shares (Class C) that only Damadian controlled 2007. Damadian later collaborated with
Wilson Greatbatch
Wilson Greatbatch (September 6, 1919 – September 27, 2011) was an American engineer and pioneering inventor. He held more than 325 patents and was a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and a recipient of the Lemelson–MIT Prize ...
, one early developer of the implantable
pacemaker
An artificial cardiac pacemaker (or artificial pacemaker, so as not to be confused with the natural cardiac pacemaker) or pacemaker is a medical device that generates electrical impulses delivered by electrodes to the chambers of the heart eith ...
, to develop an MRI-compatible pacemaker. He invented a stand-up MRI system and has 15 MRI scanning centers across the United States. There are a number of independent MRI centers that use this technology both in the U.S. and around the world. The company conceived and built the world's first Upright Multi-Positional MRI, which was recognized as The "Invention of the Year" in 2007 by the Intellectual Properties Owners Association Education Foundation.
Creationism
Damadian was a lifelong Christian. In the February 4, 2014,
Bill Nye–Ken Ham debate
The debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham on the question "Is Creation A Viable Model of Origins?" was held February 4, 2014, at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.
Ken Ham, founder and chief executive officer of the Young Earth creationis ...
, Damadian was one of the scientists who recorded themselves on video professing a belief in
young Earth creationism
Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God between approximately 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. In its most widespre ...
for
Answers in Genesis
Answers in Genesis (AiG) is an American fundamentalist Christian apologetics parachurch organization. It advocates Young Earth creationism on the basis of its literal, historical-grammatical interpretation of the Book of Genesis and the Bible ...
president
Ken Ham
Kenneth Alfred Ham (born 20 October 1951) is an Australian Christian fundamentalist, young Earth creationist and apologist, living in the United States. He is the founder, CEO, and former president of Answers in Genesis (AiG), a Christian apolo ...
to cite.
Death
Damadian died on August 3, 2022 at the age of 86 from cardiac arrest.
Awards and honors
Damadian received a
National Medal of Technology
The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development ...
in 1988 and was inducted into the
National Inventors Hall of Fame
The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also opera ...
in 1989. His original MRI full-body scanner was given to the
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
in the 1980s and is now on loan and on display at the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Ohio. In 2001, the Lemelson-MIT Prize Program bestowed its $100,000 Lifetime Achievement Award on Damadian as "the man who invented the MRI scanner."
The
Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...
in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
Knights of Vartan
The Knights of Vartan Inc. (Վարդանանց Ասպետներ) is a non-political, non-sectarian, non-denominational fraternal organization established in 1916 in the USA that encourages its members to take leadership roles in cultural, educati ...
2003 "Man of the Year." In September 2003, he was honored with the Innovation Award in Bioscience from ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...
''.
Nobel Prize controversy
In 2003, the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...
was awarded to
Paul Lauterbur
Paul Christian Lauterbur (May 6, 1929 – March 27, 2007) was an American chemist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2003 with Peter Mansfield for his work which made the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) poss ...
and Sir Peter Mansfield for their discoveries related to MRI. Although Nobel rules allow for the award to be shared by up to three recipients, Damadian was not given the prize. The controversy over who played what part in the development of the MRI had gone on for years prior to the Nobel announcement, and many in the scientific community felt that the Nobel had not been awarded for the MRI for so long due to debate over Damadian's role in its development.
Damadian said that credit should go to "me, and then Lauterbur," and Lauterbur felt that only he should get credit. In 1997 the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
commissioned a timeline of MRI milestones, and four of the 12 in an initial draft were attributed to Damadian. At the final publication in 2001, longer than any other publication in the series had ever been taken, none of the milestones was attributed to Damadian. The text said that Damadian's methods had "not proved clinically reliable in detecting or diagnosing
cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
." After Damadian's
lawyer
A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...
s sent the NAS a threatening letter, the text on the NAS website was revised, but not to Damadian's satisfaction. Damadian said in 2002, "If I had not been born, would MRI have existed? I don't think so. If Lauterbur had not been born? I would have gotten there. Eventually."
''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote:
The issue has been the subject of a dispute between Dr. Damadian and Dr. Lauterbur and has been known for years in academic circles, with some fearing that the Nobel committee would steer clear of magnetic resonance imaging altogether because of the Swedes' supposed distaste for controversial discoveries. Dr. Lauterbur, 74, is not in good health, and the committee may have decided that its prize, which cannot be given posthumously, needed to be awarded for the discovery now or never.".
After the announcement of Lauterbur and Mansfield's Nobels, between October and November 2003, an ad hoc group called "The Friends of Raymond Damadian" (formed by Damadian's company FONAR) took out full-page advertisements in ''The New York Times'' twice, ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', ''
The Los Angeles Times
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'', and one of the largest newspapers in
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
, ''
Dagens Nyheter
''Dagens Nyheter'' (, ), abbreviated ''DN'', is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It is published in Stockholm and aspires to full national and international coverage, and is widely considered Sweden's newspaper of record.
History and profile
''Da ...
'' protesting his exclusion with the headline "The Shameful Wrong That Must Be Righted" in an attempt to get the Nobel Committee to change its mind and grant him a share of the Prize.
Damadian suggested that Lauterbur and Mansfield should have rejected the Nobel Prize unless Damadian was given joint recognition. Supporting Damadian were various MRI experts including John Throck Watson, Eugene Feigelson, V. Adrian Parsegian, David Stark, and James Mattson. ''New York Times'' columnist Horace Freeland Judson criticised this behavior, noting that there is "no Nobel Prize for whining" and that many deserving candidates who may have had better claims than Damadian, such as
Lise Meitner
Elise Meitner ( , ; 7 November 1878 – 27 October 1968) was an Austrian-Swedish physicist who was one of those responsible for the discovery of the element protactinium and nuclear fission. While working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute on rad ...
,
Oswald Avery
Oswald Theodore Avery Jr. (October 21, 1877 – February 20, 1955) was a Canadian-American physician and medical researcher. The major part of his career was spent at the Rockefeller Hospital in New York City. Avery was one of the first molecula ...
, and
Jocelyn Bell
Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell (; Bell; born 15 July 1943) is an astrophysicist from Northern Ireland who, as a postgraduate student, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967. The discovery eventually earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in ...
, had been previously denied a share of the Nobel. However, he had to admit that
Erwin Chargaff
Erwin Chargaff (11 August 1905 – 20 June 2002) was an Austro-Hungarian-born American biochemist, writer, Bucovinian Jew who emigrated to the United States during the Nazi Germany, Nazi era, and professor of biochemistry at Columbia University ...
, whose two rules were instrumental in the discovery of DNA's structure, was very vocal about his omission, and
Fred Hoyle
Sir Fred Hoyle FRS (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and was one of the authors of the influential B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on other sci ...
was irate about
Jocelyn Bell
Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell (; Bell; born 15 July 1943) is an astrophysicist from Northern Ireland who, as a postgraduate student, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967. The discovery eventually earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in ...
's exclusion.
Others pointed out that while Damadian had hypothesized that NMR relaxation times might be used to detect cancer, he did not develop (nor did he suggest) the current way of creating images. Since the Nobel Prize was awarded to Lauterbur and Mansfield for the development of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance ''Imaging'', Damadian's exclusion makes more sense. Some felt that research scientists sided with Lauterbur because he was one of their own, while Damadian was a physician who had profited greatly from his early patents. Charles Springer, an expert in MRI at Oregon Health and Science University, said that if a poll was taken of the academic community, most would agree with the
Nobel Committee
A Nobel Committee is a working body responsible for most of the work involved in selecting Nobel Prize laureates. There are five Nobel Committees, one for each Nobel Prize.
Four of these committees (for prizes in physics, chemistry, physiolog ...
's conclusions. And Mansfield wrote in his autobiography that "the person who really missed out" on winning the prize was
Erwin Hahn
Erwin Louis Hahn (June 9, 1921 – September 20, 2016) was an American physicist, best known for his work on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).Filler, AG: The history, development, and impact of computed imaging in neurological diagnosis and neuros ...
for his contribution to the principles of spin echoes.
Chemist George Kauffman argued that Damadian deserved the Nobel:
Undoubtedly, both Damadian and Lauterbur made major contributions to MRI imaging and scanning. Without Damadian's relaxation discoveries that showed sharp discrimination between tissues and particularly a serious disease like cancer, there would have been no reason to entertain or even consider a method for displaying the relaxation differences so that they could be visualized as an image. Furthermore, except for the relaxation differences discovered by Damadian, there would be no reason to expect that such an image would show anything, i.e., that any tissue NMR contrast existed with which to make an image.
Science and technology are two distinctly different enterprises. Science is the branch of knowledge dedicated to compiling factual information and understanding natural phenomena. It precedes technology, and technology cannot advance without it. Without science's new knowledge of natural phenomena, technology's new methods for exploiting and taking advantage of nature's secrets cannot be created. The new scientific information is necessarily the first step.
Moreover, there is no doubt that Damadian's seminal discovery preceded Lauterbur's developments.
Philosopher
Michael Ruse
Michael Ruse (born 21 June 1940) is a British-born Canadian philosopher of science who specializes in the philosophy of biology and works on the relationship between science and religion, the creation–evolution controversy, and the demarcatio ...
writing for the
Metanexus Institute The Metanexus Institute is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1997 to explore scientific and philosophical questions. The institute has organized the exchange of ideas through conferences, and published books.
History
With the help of Peter ...
suggested that Damadian might have been denied a Nobel prize because of his creationist views, saying:
I cringe at the thought that Raymond Damadian was refused his just honor because of his religious beliefs. Having silly ideas in one field is no good reason to deny merit for great ideas in another field. Apart from the fact that this time the Creation Scientists will think that there is good reason to think that they are the objects of unfair treatment at the hands of the scientific community.
Damadian himself said, "Before this happened, nobody ever said to me 'They will not give you the Nobel Prize for Medicine because you are a creation scientist'. If people were actively campaigning against me because of that, I never knew it."
In his 2015 memoir ''Gifted Mind'', Damadian suggested the Nobel committee may have rejected him because of his religious beliefs.
Bibliography
* (with Jeff Kinley)
See also
*
Nobel Prize controversies
Since the first award in 1901, conferment of the Nobel Prize has occasionally engendered criticism