30 Facts About Raymond Damadian

Raymond Vahan Damadian was an American physician, medical researcher, and inventor of the first nuclear magnetic resonance scanning machine.

Raymond Damadian discovered that tumors and normal tissue can be distinguished in vivo by nuclear magnetic resonance because of their prolonged relaxation times, both T1 or T2.

Raymond Damadian was the first to perform a full-body scan of a human being in 1977 to diagnose cancer.

Raymond 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.

Raymond Damadian was named Knights of Vartan 2003 "Man of the Year".

Raymond Damadian received a National Medal of Technology in 1988 and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1989.

Raymond Vahan Damadian was born in New York City, to an Armenian family.

Raymond Damadian's father Vahan was a photoengraver who had immigrated from what is Turkey, while his mother Odette was an accountant.

Raymond Damadian studied the violin at Juilliard for 8 years, and played in Junior Davis Cup tennis competitions.

Raymond Damadian met his future wife, Donna Terry, while he had a job as a tennis coach.

Raymond Damadian invited him to the 1957 Billy Graham crusade at Madison Square Garden, and he responded to the altar call.

Raymond Damadian 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.

Raymond Damadian found that the potassium relaxation times were much shorter compared with aqueous solutions of potassium ions.

Raymond 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.

Raymond Damadian suggested that these differences could be used to detect cancer, 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, Raymond 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.

Raymond Damadian's patent followed on the heels of rumors already floating throughout the scientific community of Lauterbur's proposed idea of using NMR in vivo.

In 1978, Raymond Damadian formed his own company, Fonar, for the production of MRI scanners, and in 1980, he produced the first commercial one.

Raymond Damadian's "focused field" technology proved significantly less efficient and slower than Lauterbur's gradient approach.

Raymond Damadian said that the judgment money was all put back into Fonar for research and development purposes.

Raymond Damadian later collaborated with Wilson Greatbatch, one early developer of the implantable pacemaker, to develop an MRI-compatible pacemaker.

Raymond Damadian invented a stand-up MRI system and has 15 MRI scanning centers across the United States.

Raymond Damadian 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.

Raymond Damadian died on August 3,2022, at the age of 86 from cardiac arrest.

Raymond Damadian received a National Medal of Technology in 1988 and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1989.

Raymond Damadian said that credit should go to "me, and then Lauterbur," and Lauterbur felt that only he should get credit.

Raymond Damadian suggested that Lauterbur and Mansfield should have rejected the Nobel Prize unless Raymond Damadian was given joint recognition.

Since the Nobel Prize was awarded to Lauterbur and Mansfield for the development of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Raymond Damadian's exclusion makes more sense.

Some felt that research scientists sided with Lauterbur because he was one of their own, while Raymond Damadian was a physician who had profited greatly from his early patents.

Philosopher Michael Ruse writing for the Metanexus Institute suggested that Raymond Damadian might have been denied a Nobel prize because of his creationist views, saying:.