William Edelstein, visiting scientist at Rensselaer, has been named the winner of the 2005-2006 American Institute of Physics (AIP) Industrial Applications in Physics Prize. Edelstein was chosen “for his pioneering developments leading to commercialization of high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for medical applications.” The prize will be given to Edelstein at the Industrial Physics Forum, Nov. 6-8 in Gaithersburg, Md.

With its ability to obtain detailed images from the depths of the living body, MRI has saved lives and increased knowledge of the human body. There are now more than 22,000 MRI scanners worldwide performing some 60 million scans annually.

Edelstein described working on MRI as “winning the scientific lottery. When I started working on MRI in the late 1970s, no one, including me, knew that the technology was going to be the outstanding success it became.”

According to AIP’s announcement on the award, Edelstein’s critical contributions to MRI began at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland where he collaborated in constructing one of the first whole-body scanners and was the primary inventor of the “Spin Warp” imaging method that is still used in all commercial MRI systems.

He joined the GE Corporate Research and Development Center in Schenectady in 1980. GE had been focused on CT scans, but Edelstein and a small group of GE scientists were encouraged to investigate medical magnetic resonance technology. Edelstein’s early analysis and experimental work on MRI signal-to-noise ratio helped establish the possibility of what was then high-field 1.5 Tesla (64 MHz) imaging and its commercial feasibility.

Edelstein led or was a key part of physics-related projects producing important science, ideas, or inventions that solved critical problems and noticeably moved the field forward. He investigated fundamental issues of signal-to-noise ratio and image quality. He helped design and improve the structures creating linear magnetic field variation (gradients) that produce the MRI image information. He worked on developing MRI radiofrequency coils both for whole-body imaging as well as for localized regions of the body.  He collaborated in devising the MRI Phased Array that produces images combining the superior resolution of localized coils with a large field of view.

More recently at GE Corporate Research, Edelstein elucidated the sources and pathways of acoustic noise generated in MRI systems and assembled an experimental system with substantially reduced noise. Now retired, he is continuing that work as an independent scientist and consultant in collaboration with university and industrial partners. At Rensselaer, Edelstein is affiliated with the department of physics, applied physics, and astronomy and regularly brings distinguished speakers to campus.

Information on the AIP Industrial Applications in Physics Prize

Published October 10, 2005