Graeme Bydder, Terry Peters

Graeme Bydder

A visionary New Zealander born in Motueka in 1944, he has left an indelible mark on the lives of millions of people across the globe through his ground-breaking work in MRI, and his contributions are nothing short of monumental. Three quarters of modern clinical MRI brain examinations employ techniques that he first described from 1981 to 1992. The 100 million MRI scans done every year worldwide are mostly interpreted using principles first described by Graeme in 1982.

For over 40 years, his work has been at the forefront of clinical MRI, and has shaped the course of medical diagnosis and improved the lives of countless patients. An icon in his field, hailed by some as one of the Godfathers of MRI, in true New Zealand fashion, he is innovative, and a contrarian – challenging conventions and exploring new approaches to transforming healthcare.

Graeme graduated from the University of Canterbury in 1964 with a Bachelor of Science, and completed a medical degree at the University of Otago Medical School in 1969. He left New Zealand for London in 1978 and worked with Nobel Prize winner Godfrey Hounsfield on the world’s first commercial whole-body CT machine at Northwick Park Hospital in London from 1978–80. He operated the world’s first commercial cryomagnet-based MRI system at Hammersmith Hospital in London from 1981 to 1990. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed journal articles on MRI techniques, clinical applications of MRI, image interpretation and related subjects, and has over 26,000 citations.

In addition to his pioneering medical research, Graeme is also a dedicated teacher and mentor, training the next generation of MRI researchers and clinicians. His passion for the field of MRI and commitment to educating others has been instrumental in developing the MRI community and ensuring that the benefits of research are widely disseminated. Through his teaching, Graeme has inspired several generations of scientists, and at all levels of knowledge. Moreover, his advances in imaging have enabled many others to build on his work, leading to significant outcomes in the way a broad range of health conditions are diagnosed, including brain disorders, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and muscular skeletal disease, to name a few.

Now Emeritus Professor Graeme Bydder, he is still actively involved in research, and is currently working with the Mātai Medical Research Institute in Tairāwhiti Gisborne, led by fellow New Zealander Dr Samantha Holdsworth. The researchers at Mātai have developed a technique which improves the contrast shown by MRI images by 10-20 times. This is revolutionary. In case after case, this technique shows abnormalities which are not detectable with state-of- the-art imaging using the most advanced MR systems available anywhere in the world. There has been worldwide interest in the technique, which is likely to have applications in multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and many other conditions affecting the brain.

Graeme was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2024.

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Terry Peters

Professor Terry Peters was born in Dunedin and in 1966 began studying electrical engineering at the University of Canterbury, entering the PhD programme in 1970 under Professor Richard Bates. Asked to work on a project that reconstructed cross-sectional images from x-rays, this developed into what we now know as computed tomography or CT scanning, and provided a bridge between engineering and medicine.

Terry completed his PhD in 1974, writing the first-ever doctoral thesis on CT, and began working as a biomedical engineer and physicist at Christchurch Hospital, where he convinced his employer to fund the development of their own CT scanner.

“This was very novel, cutting-edge technology, and preceded the first commercial CT at the hospital,” he says.

In 1975, Terry was invited to an international CT conference at Stanford University, where he was introduced to the concept of MRI technology by Professor Paul Lauterbur, who, with Paul Mansfield, would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2003 for their work on MRI. Terry also met fellow New Zealander Chris Thompson from McGill University, who invited him to continue his research at the Montreal Neurological Institute.

Terry and his family moved to Montreal in 1978. There he explored the use of CT scanning in the brain, and introduced the first 0.5T ‘high-field’ cryo-magnet MRI in Canada. In 1997, Terry established a lab at the Robarts Research Institute at Western University in London, Ontario, focusing on image-guided neurosurgery, before moving into cardiac and abdominal disciplines.

“I’ve always found that new breakthroughs are often things you can’t predict. The whole evolution of CT and MRI is indicative of this,” he says.

Terry is a Fellow of at least six international scientific institutes, and the treasurer and board member of the MICCAI (Medical Image Computing & Computer Assisted Intervention) Society. He has mentored over 75 trainees at the Masters, Doctoral and Postdoctoral levels.  

Two other New Zealanders, Ian McDonald and David Miller, also worked on pioneering systematic studies of MRI in multiple sclerosis at Queen Square, London, beginning in 1985, which helped to transform the way the disease is diagnosed and treated.

No discussion of New Zealand’s contribution to this area would be complete without a mention of one of the country’s top thinkers, the late Sir Paul Callaghan. Born in Whanganui in 1947, Paul studied physics at Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington, then earned doctorates in Science and Philosophy at Oxford, before returning to Aotearoa New Zealand in 1947 to lecture.

Sir Paul’s work on the underlying physics behind magnetic resonance was key to some of the modern breakthroughs in diffusion imaging we see today.