Raymond Damadian
Damadian has received several prizes. In 2001, the Lemelson-MIT Prize Program bestowed its $100,000 Lifetime Achievement Award on Damadian as "the man who invented the MRI scanner." He went on to collaborate with Wilson Greatbach, one early developer of the implantable pacemaker, to develop an MRI-compatible pacemaker. The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia gave its recognition of Damadian's work on MRI with the Bower Award in Business Leadership. He was also named Knights of Vartan 2003 "Man of the Year". He received a National Medal of Technology in 1988 and was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1989.
Cheon Jinwoo
Through his fundamental studies, he integrated the fields of inorganic nanomaterials and medical science. This nexus led to the advent of a new field known as "nanomedicine". In 2005, for the first time, he demonstrated the principle of size-dependent MRI contrast effects using nanoparticles. This enabled the development of a new class of nano-MRI contrast agent, MEIO (magnetism-engineered iron oxide) which displayed 10 times stronger MRI signals compared to those of conventional contrast agents. This study opened possibilities to the advancement of the early stage diagnosis of cancer and stands as a research milestone in the field. In addition, Cheon developed multimodal probes to enhance the imaging accuracy by designing opto-magnetic probe, PET-MRI probes, dual-mode T1-T2 MRI probes. Successful discrimination of true signal of biological targets could be attained by these developments, opening a new avenue to have accurate diagnosis of disease.