(6 Oct 2003)

1. Members of Nobel Assembly entering room
2. Audience
3. Members of committee sitting down at table
4. Audience
5. SOUNDBITE (Swedish/English/French/) Hans Joernvall, Nobel Assembly Secretary:
"The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute has today decided to award the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for 2003 jointly to Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield for their discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging."
6. Screen showing still photos of Paul C. Lauterbur and Sir Peter Mansfield
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Hans Rinsatz, Nobel Committee
(Commenting on how MRI has helped.)
"Through better diagnosis, through preventive detection of disease and through better follow-up and in all of these ways the therapy is simplified or it's easier to have the correct therapy and to have a more exact therapy."
10. Assembly

STORYLINE:

American Paul C. Lauterbur and Briton Sir Peter Mansfield won the 2003 Nobel Prize for medicine on Monday for discoveries leading to a technique that reveals images of the body's inner organs.

Magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, has become a routine method for medical diagnosis and treatment.

It was used to examine almost all organs without need for surgery, but was especially valuable for detailed examination of the brain and spinal cord.

Lauterbur, 74, discovered the possibility of creating a two-dimensional picture by producing variations in a magnetic field.

Lauterbur was at the Biomedical Magnetic Resonance Laboratory at the University of Illinois in Urbana.

Mansfield, 70, showed how the signals the body emits in response to the magnetic field could be mathematically analysed, which made it possible to develop a useful imaging technique.

Mansfield also showed how extremely fast imaging could be achievable.

This became technically possible within medicine a decade later.

Mansfield was at the University of Nottingham in Britain.

Essentially, MRI turned hydrogen atoms in the body's tissues into tiny radio transmitters.

Hydrogen atoms were plentiful because they were found in water molecules, which were very widespread in the body.

By tracking where those atoms were, an MRI machine could build up a picture of internal organs.

The prize included a check for 10 (m) million Swedish kronor, or 1.3 (m) million US dollars, and bestowed a deeper sense of academic and medical integrity upon the winners.

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