Paul Lauterbur

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Paul Lauterbur: MRI pioneer

Paul Christian Lauterbur (May 6, 1929 – March 27, 2007) was an American chemist whose work helped make magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) possible. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2003 with Peter Mansfield for developing MRI.

Early life
Lauterbur came from Luxembourgish ancestry and grew up in Sidney, Ohio. As a teenager, he built his own small laboratory at home, and his chemistry teacher encouraged his experiments. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in the 1950s, where he worked on an early nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) machine and published several papers.

Education and career
He earned a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Case Western Reserve University and later a PhD in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh in 1962. After working at the Mellon Institute and a short stint at the Dow Corning labs, he joined Stony Brook University in 1963, where he conducted much of his MRI-related research. In 1985 he moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he and his wife, M. Joan Dawson, founded the Biomedical Magnetic Resonance Laboratory. Lauterbur remained active in teaching and research, mentoring undergraduates and holding multiple faculty appointments.

The development of the MRI
Lauterbur’s key idea was to use gradients in a magnetic field to create spatial information, allowing the nuclei inside a body to be mapped into images. This concept made two-dimensional and then three-dimensional MRI possible. His 1973 Nature paper, “Image Formation by Induced Local Interaction; Examples Employing Nuclear Magnetic Resonance,” is considered a foundational work for MRI. Early images demonstrated the difference between heavy water and ordinary water and included small objects like a clam and peppers, showing MRI’s potential to image soft tissues.

Later advances and patents
Peter Mansfield at the University of Nottingham later refined Lauterbur’s method by using frequency- and phase-encoding gradients and Fourier transforms to speed up image formation. Lauterbur sought patents for MRI but was not successful; the State University of New York chose not to pursue patents, while Mansfield’s team benefited financially from patenting through the University of Nottingham.

Death and legacy
Lauterbur died in Urbana, Illinois, in 2007 from kidney disease. His work has saved countless lives by enabling noninvasive imaging of the human body. He received many honors, including the Nobel Prize, the Kyoto Prize, the National Medal of Science, and the National Medal of Technology.

Quick facts
- Born: May 6, 1929, in Sidney, Ohio
- Died: March 27, 2007, in Urbana, Illinois
- Field: Chemistry
- Known for: Developing MRI
- Nobel Prize: 2003 (Physiology or Medicine, shared with Peter Mansfield)
- Institutions: Stony Brook University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Notable impact: Helped create MRI, a critical medical imaging tool used worldwide today