JAMES HUTCHISON (1940 – 2018)
JAMES HUTCHISON (1940 – 2018)
Physicist
‘Without doubt he was the most capable scientist I ever met’ – Professor David Lurie.
A plaque in Market Square, Alyth, honours the Physicist James Hutchison, who along with his team of Aberdeen scientists, invented the first full body Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner.
Born James Macdonald Strachan Hutchison on 23 September 1940 at Barony Park, Alyth, he received his education first in Alyth then at Blairgowrie High School before studying at the University of St Andrews. In the 1960s he was appointed to the University of Aberdeen’s Medical Physics team.
Along with his team Professor James Hutchison built the ‘Mark 1’ machine, which scanned its first patient at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in 1980. James Hutchison’s ‘spin-warp’ technique changed medical imaging and is still used in modern MRI machines which are now vital pieces of hospital equipment.
James Hutchison died 4 September 2018 aged 77.
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