Consumer >> CEO Interviews >> February 9, 2004

LEON KAUFMAN – ACCUIMAGE DIAGNOSTICS CORPORATION (AIDP)

LEON KAUFMAN is currently acting as Head of Research at AccuImage Diagnostics Corporation as well as consulting in the medical imaging field. He received a BS degree in Engineering Physics and a PhD in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and is Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of California at San Francisco, where he spent 24 years in the Radiology Department and in the Nuclear Medicine Section. In this field he developed a number of advanced counting and imaging devices incorporating gas-filled wire chambers and room temperature and cryogenic semiconductor detectors. He initiated the UCSF MRI program in 1975, a program that was supported successively by Pfizer, Diasonics and Toshiba. Under his direction three trend setting products were developed: the mid-field MT/S, the first whole body superconducting MRI system to receive FDA approval, and the first practical unit because it incorporated multislice and spin echo imaging; Access, the first commercial open MRI, operating at an ultra-low field; and, OPART, the first mid-field, superconducting, cryogenless open MRI, a unit that has defined the future standards for open MRI. Dr. Kaufman spent six years at Toshiba as Chief Scientist and Vice President of Engineering. Following this he spent two years as Chief Executive Officer at AccuImage Diagnostics Corporation and President of International MRI Accreditation Resources, LLC. He has over 400 publications and holds 40 MRI and image processing patents with 20 others filed. Profile
TWST: Could we begin with a brief historical of AccuImage Diagnostics

and a picture of the things you're doing at the present time?

Dr. Kaufman: The company was started basically to service