2003

Perspectives

Paul Lauterbur’s quest to develop a medical imaging tool that worked using magnetism succeeded through a mixture of accidental meetings, detours and dogged persistence. “All detours should be so productive!” cried at the end of his Nobel Lecture. Lauterbur found himself changing course from chemistry to medical imaging, but thanks to a series of unexpected…

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    The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2003             Credits and References for the 2003 Nobel Poster for Physiology or Medicine Scientific Advisors, Professors at Karolinska Institutet: Bo Angelin – Medicine, Chair of the Nobel Committee Bertil Hamberger – Surgery Martin Ingvar – Cognitive Neurophysiology Hans Jörnvall -…

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Speed read

The Nobel Prize in Medicine for 2003 rewards the idea that a method used to identify the contents of a test tube could also be used to visualize the contents of our bodies. Magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, has emerged as a powerful medical accompaniment to X-rays and CT scans, providing strikingly clear pictures of…

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    The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2003             The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2003   The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield for their discoveries concerning “magnetic resonance imaging”. These…

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    The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2003             Introduction   The phenomenon of nuclear magnetic resonance was demonstrated already in 1946 and has previously resulted in Nobel Prizes in both Physics and Chemistry. This year’s Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine are rewarded for seminal discoveries making…

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Biographical

My ancestors apparently emigrated from Europe in the middle of the 19th century; the Lauterburs probably from Luxembourg, and my mother’s people, Wagners and Weingartners, from Baden-Baden or nearby. They settled in northern Ohio, where my mother’s father, Hans Christian Wagner, married Margaret (Maggie) Weingartner. They lived in Tiffin, Ohio when I was a child,…

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    The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2003               The Uses of MRI MRI of the neck. The red arrow indicates a disk herniation bulging into the spinal canal. Today, MRI is used to examine all organs of the body. This modality is especially valuable for detailed…

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