FONAR Corporation (NASDAQ-FONR), Inventor of MR Scanning™, reported
that its founder, chairman of the board and past president, Raymond
V. Damadian, M.D. received the Excellence in Medicine award from
the Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation (CSF), on November
10, 2018, at Brooks’s, London, England.
Dr. Damadian was introduced by Fraser C.
Henderson, Sr., M.D., a neurosurgeon and a member of the steering
committee for the Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation and
Professor Donlin Long, M.D., former Chairman of Neurosurgery at
Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Henderson, said: “Dr. Damadian
revolutionized medicine with the discovery and development of
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and we were honored to select Dr.
Damadian for this award. Besides the discovery of the basis
of MRI (1970) and the building of the world’s first MRI scanner
(1977), Dr. Damadian has continued important research using the
FONAR UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI to image and measure
cerebrospinal fluid flow. This research may have profound
implications for Chiari malformation, syringomyelia and some of the
neurodegenerative disorders.”
Professor Long remarked that “ As the discovery
of penicillin was the most important discovery in medicine in the
first half of the twentieth century, Dr. Damadian’s discovery of
the MRI was the most important in the second half of the 20th
century, and the single most important diagnostic discovery in the
history of all of medicine. ”
The text of the Chiari &
Syringomyelia Foundation’s award citation of Dr. Damadian’s
contribution:
“As a young child, Raymond Damadian watched his
grandmother die painfully of cancer. This memory may have fueled
his desire to find cures for some of the world's most devastating
diseases.
Chosen at the age of 15 as a Ford Foundation
scholar, Raymond Damadian majored, as an undergraduate, in
mathematics and minored in chemistry, but also found physics and
biology fascinating. Four years later, when he returned to his
native New York to enroll in medical school, he was drawn toward a
career in research and eventually into a 10-year quest to unlock
the mysteries of cell metabolism and chemical transport. That
search led him to consider the possibility that physics' nuclear
magnetic resonance might be a powerful diagnostic tool for
medicine.
In 1970, Raymond Damadian, M.D., made the
discovery that is the basis for magnetic resonance (MR) scanning -
that there is a marked difference in relaxation times between
normal and abnormal tissues of the same type, as well as between
different types of normal tissues. This seminal discovery, which
remains the basis for the making of every MRI image ever produced,
is the foundation of the MRI industry. Dr. Damadian published his
discovery in his milestone 1971 paper in the journal Science and
filed the pioneer patent for the practical use of his discovery in
1972.
With the aid of his post-graduate assistants,
Doctors Lawrence Minkoff and Michael Goldsmith, Dr. Damadian went
on to build Indomitable, the first MR scanner, which was conceived
to take advantage of the relaxation differences among the body's
tissues. Indomitable produced the first human image, that of Larry
Minkoff's chest, on July 3, 1977 and the first scans of patients
with cancer in 1978. Indomitable has since assumed its rightful
place in the Smithsonian Institute.
The significance and importance of Dr.
Damadian’s discovery in the origination of MRI was acknowledged by
the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1997 decision, when the Court
enforced Dr. Damadian's original patent that patented the
relaxation differences and their use in scanning and the MR scanner
device was subsequently approved by the Food and Drug
Administration in 1984.
In 1988, Dr. Damadian was awarded the National
Medal of Technology by President Ronald Reagan, which he shared
jointly with Dr. Lauterbur, for "their independent contributions in
conceiving and developing the application of magnetic resonance
technology to medical uses, including whole-body scanning and
diagnostic imaging." Less than one year later, Dr. Damadian was
inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame of the United
States Patent Office for his pioneer patent of MR scanning, joining
a select group of renowned pioneers, including Orville and Wilbur
Wright, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, whose
inventions have revolutionized our nation and society.
Although Dr. Raymond Damadian is best known
today as the inventor of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), he is
first of all a medical doctor and research scientist. In fact, it
is precisely because of his multidisciplined approach to medical
research that he discovered the key that opened the door to
MRI.
Since 1999 he has been Professor of Medicine and
Professor of Radiology at the State University of New York Health
Science Center in Brooklyn, New York. He also has several honorary
Doctor of Science degrees, including one from the New York
Institute of Technology.
In addition to the original patent in 1972,
Raymond Damadian holds more than 70 patents related to MR scanning.
Dr. Raymond Damadian is a member of the International Society For
Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and the American Association For the
Advancement of Science. His other honors include the Lemelson-MIT
Lifetime Achievement Award (2001), The Benjamin Franklin Medal
(2004) and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor (1994).”
About the Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation,
Inc.
CSF (Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation,
Inc.) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that was founded in
October 2007, with the goal of finding a cure, raising awareness
and educating scientists, physicians, and lay persons about Chiari
malformation (CM), syringomyelia (SM) and related disorders.
The office is located in Staten Island, New York. For more
information: www.CSFinfo.org
About FONAR
FONAR, the Inventor of MR Scanning™ is the
first, oldest and most experienced MRI company in the
industry. Incorporated in 1978, FONAR, which is located in
Melville, New York, introduced the world’s first commercial MRI in
1980, and went public in 1981. The company’s signature product is
the FONAR UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI (also known as the Stand-Up®
MRI), the only whole-body MRI that performs Position™ Imaging
(pMRI™), allowing it to scan patients in numerous weight-bearing
positions, i.e. standing, sitting, in flexion and extension, as
well as in the conventional lie-down position.
The FONAR UPRIGHT® MRI often detects patient
problems that other MRI scanners cannot because they are lie-down,
”weightless-only” scanners. The patient-friendly UPRIGHT® MRI has a
near-zero patient claustrophobic rejection rate. As a FONAR
customer states, “If the patient is claustrophobic in this scanner,
they’ll be claustrophobic in my parking lot.” Approximately 85% of
patients are scanned sitting while watching TV.
FONAR has new works-in-progress technology for
visualizing and quantifying the cerebral hydraulics of the central
nervous system, the flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which
circulates throughout the brain and vertebral column at the rate of
32 quarts per day. This imaging and quantifying of the
dynamics of this vital life-sustaining physiology of the body’s
neurologic system has been made possible first by FONAR’s
introduction of the MRI and now by this latest works-in-progress
method for quantifying CSF in all the normal positions of the body,
particularly in its upright flow against gravity. Patients
with whiplash or other neck injuries are among those who will
benefit from this new understanding.
FONAR’s substantial list of patents includes
recent patents for its technology enabling full weight-bearing MRI
imaging of all the gravity sensitive regions of the human anatomy,
especially the brain, extremities and spine. It includes its newest
technology for measuring the Upright cerebral hydraulics of the
central nervous system. FONAR’s UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI
is the only scanner licensed under these patents.
UPRIGHT® and STAND-UP® are registered trademarks
and The Inventor of MR Scanning™, Full Range of Motion™,
Multi-Position™, Upright Radiology™, The Proof is in the Picture™,
True Flow™, pMRI™, Spondylography™, Dynamic™, Spondylometry™, CSP™,
and Landscape™, are trademarks of FONAR Corporation.
This release may include forward-looking
statements from the company that may or may not materialize.
Additional information on factors that could potentially affect the
company's financial results may be found in the company's filings
with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
For
Immediate Release |
|
The
Inventor of MR Scanning™ |
Contact: Daniel Culver |
|
An ISO
9001 Company |
Director of Communications |
|
Melville, New York 11747 |
E-mail: investor@fonar.com |
|
Phone:
(631) 694-2929 |
www.fonar.com |
|
Fax:
(631) 390-1772 |
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at
http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/dd619d29-dedd-488f-bb62-47ecad10d03a
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