MELVILLE, N.Y., Dec. 06, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — FONAR Corporation (NASDAQ-FONR), Inventor of MR Scanning™, reported that its founder, chairman of the board and past president, Raymond V. Damadian, M.D. received the Excellence in Medicine award from the Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation (CSF), on November 10, 2018, at Brooks’s, London, England.

Dr. Damadian was introduced by Fraser C. Henderson, Sr., M.D., a neurosurgeon and a member of the steering committee for the Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation and Professor Donlin Long, M.D., former Chairman of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Henderson, said: “Dr. Damadian revolutionized medicine with the discovery and development of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and we were honored to select Dr. Damadian for this award.  Besides the discovery of the basis of MRI (1970) and the building of the world’s first MRI scanner (1977), Dr. Damadian has continued important research using the FONAR UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI to image and measure cerebrospinal fluid flow.  This research may have profound implications for Chiari malformation, syringomyelia and some of the neurodegenerative disorders.”

Professor Long remarked that “ As the discovery of penicillin was the most important discovery in medicine in the first half of the twentieth century, Dr. Damadian’s discovery of the MRI was the most important in the second half of the 20th century, and the single most important diagnostic discovery in the history of all of medicine. ”

The text of the Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation’s award citation of Dr. Damadian’s contribution:

“As a young child, Raymond Damadian watched his grandmother die painfully of cancer. This memory may have fueled his desire to find cures for some of the world’s most devastating diseases.

Chosen at the age of 15 as a Ford Foundation scholar, Raymond Damadian majored, as an undergraduate, in mathematics and minored in chemistry, but also found physics and biology fascinating. Four years later, when he returned to his native New York to enroll in medical school, he was drawn toward a career in research and eventually into a 10-year quest to unlock the mysteries of cell metabolism and chemical transport. That search led him to consider the possibility that physics’ nuclear magnetic resonance might be a powerful diagnostic tool for medicine.

In 1970, Raymond Damadian, M.D., made the discovery that is the basis for magnetic resonance (MR) scanning – that there is a marked difference in relaxation times between normal and abnormal tissues of the same type, as well as between different types of normal tissues. This seminal discovery, which remains the basis for the making of every MRI image ever produced, is the foundation of the MRI industry. Dr. Damadian published his discovery in his milestone 1971 paper in the journal Science and filed the pioneer patent for the practical use of his discovery in 1972.

With the aid of his post-graduate assistants, Doctors Lawrence Minkoff and Michael Goldsmith, Dr. Damadian went on to build Indomitable, the first MR scanner, which was conceived to take advantage of the relaxation differences among the body’s tissues. Indomitable produced the first human image, that of Larry Minkoff’s chest, on July 3, 1977 and the first scans of patients with cancer in 1978. Indomitable has since assumed its rightful place in the Smithsonian Institute.

The significance and importance of Dr. Damadian’s discovery in the origination of MRI was acknowledged by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1997 decision, when the Court enforced Dr. Damadian’s original patent that patented the relaxation differences and their use in scanning and the MR scanner device was subsequently approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1984.

In 1988, Dr. Damadian was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Ronald Reagan, which he shared jointly with Dr. Lauterbur, for “their independent contributions in conceiving and developing the application of magnetic resonance technology to medical uses, including whole-body scanning and diagnostic imaging.” Less than one year later, Dr. Damadian was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame of the United States Patent Office for his pioneer patent of MR scanning, joining a select group of renowned pioneers, including Orville and Wilbur Wright, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, whose inventions have revolutionized our nation and society.

Although Dr. Raymond Damadian is best known today as the inventor of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), he is first of all a medical doctor and research scientist. In fact, it is precisely because of his multidisciplined approach to medical research that he discovered the key that opened the door to MRI.

Since 1999 he has been Professor of Medicine and Professor of Radiology at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Brooklyn, New York. He also has several honorary Doctor of Science degrees, including one from the New York Institute of Technology.

In addition to the original patent in 1972, Raymond Damadian holds more than 70 patents related to MR scanning. Dr. Raymond Damadian is a member of the International Society For Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and the American Association For the Advancement of Science. His other honors include the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award (2001), The Benjamin Franklin Medal (2004) and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor (1994).”

About the Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation, Inc.

CSF (Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation, Inc.) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that was founded in October 2007, with the goal of finding a cure, raising awareness and educating scientists, physicians, and lay persons about Chiari malformation (CM), syringomyelia (SM) and related disorders.  The office is located in Staten Island, New York. For more information:  www.CSFinfo.org

About FONAR

FONAR, the Inventor of MR Scanning™ is the first, oldest and most experienced MRI company in the industry.  Incorporated in 1978, FONAR, which is located in Melville, New York, introduced the world’s first commercial MRI in 1980, and went public in 1981. The company’s signature product is the FONAR UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI (also known as the Stand-Up® MRI), the only whole-body MRI that performs Position™ Imaging (pMRI™), allowing it to scan patients in numerous weight-bearing positions, i.e. standing, sitting, in flexion and extension, as well as in the conventional lie-down position.

The FONAR UPRIGHT® MRI often detects patient problems that other MRI scanners cannot because they are lie-down, ”weightless-only” scanners. The patient-friendly UPRIGHT® MRI has a near-zero patient claustrophobic rejection rate. As a FONAR customer states, “If the patient is claustrophobic in this scanner, they’ll be claustrophobic in my parking lot.” Approximately 85% of patients are scanned sitting while watching TV.

FONAR has new works-in-progress technology for visualizing and quantifying the cerebral hydraulics of the central nervous system, the flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which circulates throughout the brain and vertebral column at the rate of 32 quarts per day.  This imaging and quantifying of the dynamics of this vital life-sustaining physiology of the body’s neurologic system has been made possible first by FONAR’s introduction of the MRI and now by this latest works-in-progress method for quantifying CSF in all the normal positions of the body, particularly in its upright flow against gravity.  Patients with whiplash or other neck injuries are among those who will benefit from this new understanding.

FONAR’s substantial list of patents includes recent patents for its technology enabling full weight-bearing MRI imaging of all the gravity sensitive regions of the human anatomy, especially the brain, extremities and spine. It includes its newest technology for measuring the Upright cerebral hydraulics of the central nervous system.  FONAR’s UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI is the only scanner licensed under these patents.

UPRIGHT® and STAND-UP® are registered trademarks and The Inventor of MR Scanning™, Full Range of Motion™, Multi-Position™, Upright Radiology™, The Proof is in the Picture™, True Flow™, pMRI™, Spondylography™, Dynamic™, Spondylometry™, CSP™, and Landscape™, are trademarks of FONAR Corporation.

This release may include forward-looking statements from the company that may or may not materialize. Additional information on factors that could potentially affect the company’s financial results may be found in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/dd619d29-dedd-488f-bb62-47ecad10d03a