The First Full-Body MRI and Other Advances

The First Full-Body MRI and Other Advances

36. Morton Mower, MD (1933-)
U.S. cardiologist Mower was also instrumental in the development of the automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator along with Michel Mirowski. He has also contributed to pacemaker advances. He was included in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002.

37. Peter Mansfield (1933-)
The British physicist Sir Peter Mansfield worked with Paul Lauterbur on important MRI research in the 1970s that earned them both the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. A center dedicated to MRI research, known as the Sir Peter Mansfield Magnetic Resonance Centre, has been established at the University of Nottingham.

38. M. Stephen Heilman, MD (1933-)
Heilman was another one of the inventors who helped develop the automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator. He has also helped develop contrast-enhanced medical imaging, the first wearable defibrillator, and heart assist devices. He also founded the company Medrad Inc., which is now a division of Bayer Healthcare.

39. Thomas Fogarty (1934-)
The balloon catheter pioneer Thomas Fogarty is one of the most famous medical device inventors. He holds more than 150 patents. In 2000, he was awarded the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for his medical device inventions, which include a minimally invasive breast cancer diagnosis device and a self-expanding stent-graft to treat aortic aneurysms less invasively. Fogarty won the MDEA Lifetime Achievement award in 2012.

40. Raymond Vahan Damadian, MD (1936-)
Raymond Damadian, MD, led a three-person team that invented the first full-body MRI in the late 1970s. He remains the president and chairman of the company he founded, Melville, NY-based Fonar Corp., which went on to build the world's first upright MRI machine. He is shown above standing next to an early MRI system (image from Wikipedia). 

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