Raymond Damadian, creator of MRI

The photograph shows Raymond Vahan Damadian, an American physician and scientist of Armenian origin, who gave the world magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), one of the safest and most accurate methods of diagnosis. Damadian was the son of a family that survived the Genocide.

He was the first to prove that cancerous and healthy cells respond differently to a magnetic field. In 1977 he built the world’s first MRI scanner and named it “Indomitable”.

In the photograph Damadian, in a dark suit, stands beside a large metal apparatus with a wide round opening.