Godfrey Hounsfield Biography

Sir Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield was an electrical engineer from England who was one of the co-recipients of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. He pioneered the designing of the CT scanner, thereby creating a mark in the history of radiology. He was the joint recipient of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Godfrey Hounsfield studied the basics of radar and electronics while serving at the Royal Air Force during World War II. He later obtained a Diploma from the Faraday House Electrical Engineering College and joined EMI Ltd to pursue research. He guided the design team to build Britain’s initial all-transistor computer, named the EMIDEC 110. He later shifted to work at the EMI Central Research Laboratories. While working here he developed the idea of computerized tomography scan. He introduced this novel concept of medical imaging that was painless, fast and made effective use of the permitted X ray dose. He shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with physicist Allan McLeod Cormack ‘for the development of computer assisted tomography’. He later went on to develop the first whole body scanner. Post his retirement, he focused on studying concepts like nuclear magnetic resonance and diagnostic imaging.