Who Should Be On The New £50 Note?
The Bank of England are creating a new £50 and they want it to feature someone who’s contributed to science. We can nominate who we think that should be.
There are so many worthy names that deserve this but for me I am nominating Sir Peter Mansfield.
Sir Peter Mansfield, an English physicist who, with American chemist Paul Lauterbur, won the 2003 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
An MRI is a technique where images are taken of the body and used to detect internal problems, that can be over looked by the naked eye or by other machines.
MRI machines rely on strong magnets and the magnetic fields they produce create accurate pictures of what is going on under the skin. They are used throughout the world by doctors and radiologists.
Because MRI does not have the harmful side effects of X-ray or computed tomography (CT) examinations and is noninvasive, this technology has proved an invaluable tool in medicine for humans and animals.
Millions of lives have been saved thanks to Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), which permits early detection of severe conditions, such as strokes, multiple sclerosis and cancer.
Sir Peter Mansfield made the famous medical breakthrough at the University of Nottingham in 1977. The University of Nottingham is therefore considered as the birthplace and home of MRI.
The Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre has an internationally leading position in biomedical imaging research across all length scales from whole body imaging to microscopy.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging changed the face of healthcare, revolutionising how we diagnose and treat patients, and today provides more than 60 million clinical investigations around the world every year
MRI helped detect my own Head and Neck cancer and I am indebted to the scientists who created this technology.
Nominate who you would like to see on the new £50 note here.
You’ve got until Friday 14 December 2018.
Further reading
You can read more about the story of MRI in Sir Peter Mansfield’s autobiography The Long Road To Stockholm
Sir Peter Mansfield has had a tram named after him in Nottingham:
