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.
Saint Boniface Hospital
The Dr. Andrei Sakharov Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Facility, the first of its kind in Manitoba, has three MRI scanners. The facility allows radiologists to diagnose abnormalities of the brain, spinal cord, internal organs and joints. St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre is a recognized leader in the MRI field and has one of the largest MRI research facilities in Canada. An MRI was first installed at St. Boniface in 1990; this MRI was eventually replaced by a more modern version, which is primarily used for clinical purposes. The other two MRIs are research-oriented: they are an interventional scanner and a head-only functional unit. The clinical scanner enables the Centre to do echo-planar imaging, producing images at video rates; the interventional MRI gives physicians access to the patient during imaging, which supports research into robotics-guided laser surgery. Research carried out at the centre has been published in the "Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging".