Raymond Damadian
Damadian is the company's largest shareholder, with 8% of stock worth $6.5 million. Despite owning only 8% of the stock, he maintains almost 100% control of the company through a separate class of shares (Class C) that only Damadian controls 2007. Damadian later collaborated with Wilson Greatbatch, one early developer of the implantable pacemaker, to develop an MRI-compatible pacemaker. He invented a stand-up MRI system and has 15 MRI scanning centers across the United States. There are a number of independent MRI centers that use this technology both in the U.S. and around the world. The company conceived and built the world's first Upright Multi-Positional MRI, which was recognized as The Invention of the Year in 2007 by the Intellectual Properties Owners Association Education Foundation.
James S. Hyde
In MRI, Dr. Hyde recognized that the LGR technology of EPR could be extended to radio frequency (RF) surface coils for improved diagnostic radiology. The principle was established that the best images were obtained by designing special RF coils with dimensions that corresponded to the anatomy that was of interest. He also introduced to MRI the first report on parallel acquisition of MRI data from multiple non-interacting surface coils. Gradient coils are required in order to make an image, and it was natural to consider use of a local gradient coil that was tailored to the anatomy of interest. A local RF coil inside of a local gradient coil was developed for the human wrist. The configuration was then extended to the human head, which led to one of the first papers on human functional MRI (fMRI). This paper was followed by several early fMRI neuroscience papers from MCW. Strong neuroscience at MCW based on reference Bandettini "et al." led to the funding of a Program Project at MCW by the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Hyde served for 10 years as Program Director. The same equipment also was used in the discovery of MRI resting state human functional connectivity (fcMRI), a very heavily cited paper that led to the founding of a new journal: Brain Connectivity, and the funding of the Human Connectome Project. In current work, the basic coil design is being used by Dr. Hyde for fMRI and fcMRI studies of connectivity in rat brain at a field strength of 9.4 Tesla and a resolution of 200 microns in each dimension.Dr. Hyde and his wife Karen are significant contributors to the building of Wisconsin art's reputation and were instrumental in the development of a new building for the Museum of Wisconsin Art, based in West Bend, Wisconsin.http://www.wisconsinart.org/ An award based in their honor was established in 2015 to recognize their contributions in this area. http://www.wisconsinart.org/exhibitions/gifts-of-the-hydes.aspx