PROBE LAB INDIA

 THE ULTRASOUND RESEARCHERS

Professor Nicolaas (Klass) Bom

• Born in 1937 at Velsen, the Netherlands.
• He worked as a naval officer at the Laboratory of Physics of RVO-TNO at The Hague and was subsequently involved in research on underwater acoustics at the Saclant Research Center of NATO at La Spezia, Italy for a period of six years.
• He obtained his Ph.D. in 1972 on the thesis "New Concepts in Echocardiography"
• He was the first to describe linear array principles with practical results in cardiology.
• He also explained phased array catheter-based real time imaging of heart and large vessels.
• Since 1974, he is Head of the Biomedical Engineering Group of the Thorax centre.
• In 1987, he received an honorary doctorate from the Technological Faculty of the University of Lund, Sweden
• He was responsible for the development of the real-time multi-element linear array scanner in the early 1970s.
• Designer of 2.5 MHz linear array probe.
• In collaboration with the cardiologist Paul Hugenholtz and Dutch company Organon Teknika, they produced the "Multiscan System", one of the earliest commercial linear array scanners in the world.
• Professor Bom has pioneered and worked on many important research projects, many of which are on transducer design, experimental echocardiography, the development of intraluminal, transoesophageal and intravascular ultrasonic techniques, their clinical applications and standardization.
• Professor Bom is on the Editorial Board of a number of journals in the field of ultrasound.
• He authored and co-authored over 300 scientific papers on the subject of design and development of ultrasonic devices for medical diagnostics.
• He was presented with the "History of Medical Ultrasound Pioneer Award" from the World Federation of Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (WFUMB) in 1988 and the Ian Donald Gold Medal for Technical Merit from the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (ISUOG) in 1997.
• His current research interest is in the refinement of intraluminal and intravascular ultrasound devices, methodology and standards.

Martin H Wilcox

• Martin H Wilcox was born in 1940. 
• He joined the United Tele Control Electronics and the Penura Corporations, designing and fabricating hand-held, battery-operated Doppler ultrasound diagnostic devices and automatic blood pressure measuring instruments and audiometers.
• He worked at the Unirad Corporation and is the designer of a number of their important hardware on their static B-mode scanners.
• He was out of the "medical" ultrasound field from about 1982, when he and his partner Edward Diethrich sold ADR (one of the earliest commercially available linear-array real-time scanner) to the Squibb Corporation.
• Wilcox was awarded the Ian Donald Gold Medal for Technical Merit in 1993 by the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (ISUOG).
• Wilcox used his experience in the medical world to design highly efficient, low power transducers which produce the extreme high quality performance underwater.
• He designed and produced a unique underwater acoustic positioning system called SHARPS (Sonic High-Accuracy Range and Positioning System) in 1980s
• He is the establisher of Marine Sonic Technology, Ltd, now makes important and highly technical underwater systems and is engaged with projects from the United States government, the navy and many other overseas corporations.

Jan C Somer

• He first published on electronic sector scanning for ultrasonic diagnosis in 1968 in the Journal: Ultrasonic. The principle of phased-arrays had probably been known much earlier where the techniques were engaged in underwater submarine warfare and hence the technology was kept confident.

Thurstone and Olaf von Ramm

Olaf Von Ramm

• Thurstone and Olaf von Ramm at the Duke University in 1976 published more advanced version of the electronically steered arrays.
• Their design was considered to be a pioneering and very important phased-array design at that time

Carl Kretz

• Carl Kretz was born on in 1932 in Vienna. 
• Founder of Kretztechnik
• Strong developer of non-destructive ultrasonic metal flow     detecting
• Poineer of fully electronic transducer design
• Introduced transvaginal and transrectal endo sonography
• Introduced 3D ultrasound system.
• He was given the prestigious Ian Donald Gold Medal in Technical Development from the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (ISUOG) in 1999. 

Dr. Samuel H Maslaki

• Founder of Acuson Corporation
• Samuel Maslak was born in 1948 and grows up in Suitland, Maryland.
• Maslak invented a unique scanner architecture and beam-forming agorithm which were subsequently patented and assigned to Hewlett-Packard
• Samuel Maslak holds over 40 patents and has been named as one of Health week's top 25 innovators (August 1989).
• Has numerous contributions in the field of ultrasonic medical instrument technology
• He proposed “The digital broad bandwidth beam forming”
• He co-invented computer sonography
• Maslak has received numerous accolades, including being honored as: CEO of the Entrepreneurial Company of the Year at the 13th Annual Awards presented by the Stanford Business School Alumni Association; San Francisco Bay Area Entrepreneur of the Year (July 1989); one of Business Week's "CEO's of 1000 Top Companies" (1991), as well as holder of the Joseph H. Holmes Pioneer Award for Basic Science presented by the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine in 2002.
• In 2005, he was honored with the prestigious Ian Donald Award for Technical Merit from the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology.