Nobel prize in medicine awarded to MRI pioneers

The 2003 Nobel prize in medicine has been awarded jointly to two scientists who played key parts in the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), it was announced this week.

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, awarded the prize in physiology or medicine jointly to Paul Lauterbur, professor of chemistry, biophysics, and computational biology at the University of Illinois, and Peter Mansfield, emeritus professor of physics, at the University of Nottingham, for their discoveries in MRI.

The announcement stated: “This year's Nobel laureates in medicine have made seminal discoveries concerning the use of magnetic resonance to visualise different structures. These discoveries have led to the development of modern magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, which represents a breakthrough in medical diagnostics and research.”

The Nobel prize citation stated that Professor Lauterbur discovered the possibility of creating two-dimensional pictures of structures that could not be visualised using other methods, by introducing gradients in the magnetic field used in MRI. Professor Mansfield further developed the use of gradients in the magnetic field and showed how the signals could be analysed, making it possible to develop a useful imaging technique. He later discovered how to achieve very fast imaging—a crucial step in making MRI a practical tool for use in clinical medicine.

Both scientists, now in their 70s, carried out much of the work that has now been acknowledged with the Nobel prize in the 1970s. Professor Peter Mansfield said: “It is, I suppose, every scientist's hope that one day they may be singled out for such an honour, but I must say that in my case I did think about it a few years ago, but then dismissed it.”

Figure 1.

The winners: Professor Peter Mansfield (left) and Paul C Lauterbur

Credit: AP PHOTO/SANG TAN

Credit: AP PHOTO/SETH PERLMAN

Commenting on the prize, Paul Matthews, Medical Research Council clinical research professor in the department of clinical neurology and director of the centre for functional MRI of the brain, University of Oxford, said: “This is being awarded for work that has made a very important, practical contribution to medical care delivery. This is very distinct from many recent prizes in medicine.”

He explained that the speed of imaging made possible by Professor Mansfield's work in developing echo planer imaging had made it possible to achieve very rapid imaging, so that images of moving areas of the body—such as the heart or lungs—could be made. It had also facilitated the development of functional MRI.