Norris Bradbury, head of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, New Mexico from 1945-70. He succeeded Oppenheimer (under whom the laboratory was set up in 1943 to develop the atom bomb) to the direct- orship after the Second World War. His rubric was to consolidate the lead held by the U.S. in terms of the practical applications of nuclear physics. Under Bradbury's leadership much of the research was dedicated to thermonuclear weapons but some of the funding also found it's way into non-weapons projects. The latter included experiments with nuclear power and also the use of radioactive isotopes as a diagnostic tool in medicine.