Reflecting the fundamental importance and applicability of MRI in medicine, Paul Lauterbur and Sir Peter Mansfield were awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their "discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging". The award was vigorously protested by Raymond Vahan Damadian, founder of FONAR Corporation, who claimed that he invented the MRI, and that Lauterbur and Mansfield had merely refined the technology.
