Physicist who developed MRI scanning

Born: October 9, 1933;

Died: February 8, 2017

SIR Peter Mansfield, who has died aged 83, was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose development of MRI scanning technology revolutionised science and medicine. Not only that: he volunteered to be the first person to step inside a whole-body MRI scanner so it could be tested on a human subject, ignoring warnings that he could be putting himself in danger.

The technology, first developed by Sir Peter and his team at the University of Nottingham, is now used widely around the world and allows doctors to pinpoint cancers, neurological diseases, and disorders affecting bones, joints and internal organs. The technology has also transformed many areas of medical research, especially relating to brain function.

MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, works by using strong magnetic fields and radio waves to generate three-dimensional images of the body's internal organs without potentially harmful X-rays. It was invented by the American chemist Professor Paul Lauterbur, of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who produced the first cross-sectional image of a living mouse in January 1974.

However, it was Sir Peter and his team, working in Nottingham, who developed the technology and turned it into a useful diagnostic tool, creating scans that took seconds rather than hours and generating much clearer images. Sir Peter is credited with showing how radio signals from MRI can be mathematically analysed and interpreted.

He was born in Lambeth, the youngest of three brothers and grew up in Camberwell, where his father was a gas fitter. At school, he did not show academic promise at first and left at 15 with no qualifications to start work as a printer's assistant.

He stayed with the printing firm for three years but he had also developed an interest in rocketry and was taken on by the Ministry of Supply’s Rocket Propulsion Department in Westcott, Buckinghamshire, before studying for his A levels and winning a place to study physics at Queen Mary College, University of London. He then went on to do a doctorate in nuclear magnetic resonance.

From 1962, he worked as a research associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana, Illinois, before being offered a lectureship at the University of Nottingham. He was still interested in pursuing the earlier ideas he had developed during his PhD studies in London and was given a room where he was able to set up equipment to pursue his studies in multiple-pulse nuclear magnetic resonance.

It was while working at Nottingham that he first became aware of the work that had been carried out by Professor Lauterbur and Sir Peter and his team began testing the technique on plants and animal tissue, later winning funding from the Medical Research Council to develop the work further.

By 1978, the first MRI full body scanner was ready to be tested on a human subject and Sir Peter volunteered, later recalling what a strange experience it had been. “I climbed into the machine ... there was an audible crack but I felt nothing. I then signalled to start the scan. Due to lack of time there was no light inside. I was therefore clamped in the magnet vertically and in pitch darkness for 50 minutes until the procedure was completed. Our wives and fiancees were present ready to haul me out of the magnet in an emergency, but the whole experiment went well and images were recorded.”

In the years that followed, Sir Peter’s team at Nottingham continued to pioneer improvements in the technology and a dedicated Magnetic Resonance Centre opened in 1991.

In the 1980s, Sir Peter had been courted by universities in the US but he remained loyal to Nottingham. He retired from teaching in 1994 but continued his research activities both at the university and with the help of the small company he had established, General Magnetic, which conducted research mainly into the safety and functionality of MRI.

In 2003, Sir Peter shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with Prof Lauterbur for their work on magnetic resonance imaging – a recognition which many thought long overdue. Sir Peter was also recognised with many other awards including the Royal Society’s Wellcome Medal and Mullard Medal. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1987, made an honorary member of the British Institute of Radiology in 1993 and knighted in 1995.

After Sir Peter’s death, his family said in a statement issued by the University of Nottingham: "As well as being an eminent scientist and pioneer in his field, he was also a loving and devoted husband, father and grandfather who will be hugely missed by all the family." The family said that Sir Peter should be remembered for helping to save millions of lives.

Professor Sir David Greenaway, vice-chancellor of the University of Nottingham, said: "Few people can look back on a career and conclude that they have changed the world. In pioneering MRI, that is exactly what Sir Peter Mansfield has done, he has changed our world for the better."

Last month, Sir Peter joined former colleagues to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre at the University of Nottingham.

Away from science, his interests included flying and he held a pilot’s licence for planes and helicopters. He is survived by his wife, Lady Mansfield, his two daughters and four grandchildren.