Professor John Rowland Mallard

In August 1980 a team of visionary medical physicists, including Jim Hutchison and Bill Edelstein, led by Professor John Mallard at the University of Aberdeen took medical science to a new level. Together they introduced Mark 1 to the world, the first pioneering full body Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner.

On 28 August 1980, following years of research, the team made history when their revolutionary machine produced the first clinically-useful MRI image of a patient’s internal organs. MRI is considered to be a safer tool for diagnostics than X-rays and builds up a picture of the human body through high frequency radio signals. Although initially built as an experimental machine, Mark 1 was used immediately at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for diagnosis and research. John and his team’s technology transformed medical diagnosis across the world.