Raymond Damadian was the first to take a nuclear magnetic resonance image (MRI) image of a human body, and went on to develop the MRI as an indispensable tool for medicine.

At the age of 16 Damadian entered the University of Wisconsin, studying mathematics. He then went to medical school, believing it would afford him greater options than a traditional science education. He earned a medical degree at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York, and undertook postgraduate studies in nephrology (the study of the kidneys), biophysics, and physiological chemistry. In 1967 Damadian began a professorship at the State University of New York's Downstate Medical Center.

Damadian began investigating sodium and potassium in living cells, and was able to borrow time on a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) machine for his research. Nuclear magnetic resonances were discovered in 1938 by physicist Isidor I. Rabi. When nuclei are placed in...