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."
MRI Robot
The Automation and Interventional Medicine Robotics Lab at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has been developing enabling technologies for MRI-guided interventions. This work includes MR-compatible sensors, actuators, software, and controllers. The group has also developed various types of fully MRI-compatible robots for percutaneous prostate interventions and another one for guiding deep brain stimulation (DBS) electrode placement under real-time MR image guidance for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease.