A picture of Sir Peter Mansfield in a model Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner from the 1970’s and thousands of the first ever scans are amongst a new archive charting the story of MRI in Nottingham.
The MRI Collections Project was undertaken by Manuscripts and Special Collections (MSC) to catalogue, preserve and selectively digitise the papers of the Nobel Prize winning physicist Professor Sir Peter Mansfield and two other scientists involved in the development of MRI at Nottingham, Professor Raymond Andrew and Professor Brian Worthington. The project was funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Historic images that may have gone unseen were unearthed as part of the project including pictures of Sir Peter lying in a model of an MRI scanner and one of the first magnets used in an MRI machine.
The project to catalogue and index over two hundred boxes of papers, slides, photographs, films and videos has resulted in the creation of over 5,000 catalogue records and 13,000 digital images made of original 35 mm slides which include some of the first ever MRI scans of the human body. The new digital images were created using a bespoke camera rig that photographed each slide, these were then assessed by archivists and catalogued.
As well as the MRI slides this unique collection also contains research papers, notes, audio recordings and many papers relating to patents - Sir Peter applied for a great many patents for his MRI-related inventions and techniques and was vigorous in enforcing them.
Read the full story on the University newspage