Raymond Damadian
Damadian received a National Medal of Technology in 1988 and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1989. His original MRI full-body scanner was given to the Smithsonian Institution in the 1980s and is now on loan and on display at the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Ohio. In 2001, the Lemelson-MIT Prize Program bestowed its $100,000 Lifetime Achievement Award on Damadian as "the man who invented the MRI scanner."
Jürgen Hennig
Based on the CPMG multi-echo method, Hennig developed the RARE Sequence (Rapid Acquisition with Relaxation Enhancement) in 1984. Through his work the MR image acquisition time could be significantly reduced, which constituted an important step for its use in clinical routine. In addition, RARE offered the possibility to control the diagnostically relevant T2 contrast in MRI. The RARE method was first published in 1984 in the German journal “Der Radiologe”. His first submission to an international journal was rejected, with the comment that this method had already been tested and wouldn’t work. In the year 1986 international publications followed. RARE is currently one of the standard methods used in clinical MRI. The method is also known by the acronyms TSE (Turbo Spin Echo) and FSE (Fast Spin Echo).