Paul C. Lauterbur Dies
Paul C. Lauterbur died March 27, 2007 at home. He was 77 years old.
In 2003 he and Peter Mansfield were honored for their discoveries concerning Magnetic Resonance Imaging MRI with a Nobel prize for Medicine or Physiology. A chemist, Lauterbur was already using a technique to view the structure of molecules called nuclear magnetic resonance. In a moment of inspiration he realized that the technique could be adapted to much larger structures. His first notes on his concept were scribbled on a resaurant napkin. It took a decade to get a machine together to map images similar to computed tomography, but without using radiation. Using powerful magnets and radio waves, and then processing the resulting, MRI creates incredibly detailed images of soft tissues. MRI has become an extremely important imaging modality and new applications are being discovered constantly.