Illustration of the US chemist Paul Lauterbur (1929-2007). While working with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, which uses high frequency radio waves and magnetic fields to determine the molecular structure of a sample, Lautner realised that introducing gradients to the magnetic field would provide spatial information that could be used to create a two dimensional image. This laid the groundwork for MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and the imaging of live biological samples. Lauterbur was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with Peter Mansfield, for his discovery of MRI.