Michel Ter-Pogossian
From physics to new images of the human body
Michel Ter-Pogossian was an American physicist of Armenian descent, born in Berlin in 1925. Raised in France, he moved to the United States in 1946. His scientific career became closely associated with Washington University in St. Louis.
He was a leading contributor to positron emission tomography, or PET. Instruments and research approaches developed with colleagues made it possible to investigate metabolism and tissue activity, providing information about how organs function.
His work united nuclear physics, chemistry, engineering and medicine. Ter-Pogossian died in 1996. The imaging field he helped develop became an important part of the history of medical research and diagnosis.