Michel (Michael) Ter-Pogossian

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Michel (Michael) Ter-Pogossian (1925- June 19, 1996) was a physicist who was the father of Positron emission tomography, the first functional brain imaging technology that could effectively be used to evaluate what areas of the brain were active during various mental processes versus looking at the structure of the brain through conventional CT or [1] Dr. Ter-Pogossian was born in France. He later emigrated to the United States where he was a faculty member at the Washington University School of Medicine. He was married and had three grown children and five grandchildren.PET Scanning is one of the most promising techniques for cancer detection and has applications in monitoring heart disease.The development of new radioligands may allow more uses of positron emission tomography for other areas in medicine.

The techinque uses the injection of ultrashort acting radioactive substances bound to water or deoxyglucose.The deoxyglucose method directly measures brain metabolism whereas the radioactively labeled water is effective at measuring brain blood flow.

[edit] References

• Washington University Record: PET pioneer dies at age 71
• pet_mail: Passing of M. M. Ter Pogossian
• Obituary at IEEE (pdf)