Medical physics

Interview with Robert Jennings, retired since 2018 from the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, where he was a research physicist. He recounts his childhood in Southern California and the formative influence of Sputnik on his physics education. Jennings discusses his undergraduate experience at Occidental and his master’s work at UCLA, and he describes his postgraduate work at the NASA Ames Research Center where he worked on optical detectors. He explains his decision to pursue a PhD at Dartmouth where he studied under John Merrill and worked on Tonks-Dattner resonances. Jennings describes the circumstances leading to his postdoctoral research in Brazil at the Institute of Atomic Energy, where he worked on medical radiation in the Division of Solid-State Physics. He discusses his subsequent research with John Cameron at the University of Wisconsin’s Medical Physics section to develop spectroscopy systems. Jennings explains that the expertise he developed in radiation and modeling in Wisconsin served as his entrée to the FDA ,which excited him as the place where the most impactful research was happening at the time. He surveys the major projects he was involved with over his career, including human visual signal detection, quality assessment of medical devices, improving mammography diagnostics, tomosynthesis, and CT scanners. At the end of the interview, Jennings surveys the fundamental developments that have advanced over the course of his forty-plus year career at FDA, his major contributions in tissue simulation science, and why he believes AI will become increasingly central to advances in medical imaging. 

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Roger Schneider, retired and formerly Associate Director for Science of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the FDA. Schneider recounts his childhood in Yakima, Washington, and he describes his early interests in science.  He discusses his undergraduate education at Stanford, and he explains his motivation to join the Public Health Service as a physicist working to detect nuclear fission products in the environment.  Schneider describes his graduate education at NYU in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, and he explains how this work led to his appointment as part of an experimental physics group set up by the Public Health Service in Rockville, Maryland.  He explains the lab’s mission to detect radiation emanating from various medical and consumer products, and he describes the Congressional legislation that created the FDA.  Schneider provides an institutional history of the origins of the National Center for Radiological Health and its formative work on the safety of lasers, ultraviolet sources, and radio waves.  He explains the negotiations that inevitably arose between industry, medical practitioners, and the relevant regulatory agencies charged with safety and efficacy.  Schneider explains the origins of MOSFET technology and its development by the semiconductor industry and the valuable collaborations he pursued with the International Society for Optical Engineering. He conveys the importance of the Radiation Control Act to standardize radiation thresholds for patient exposure and the impact of CT technology on these standards. Schneider discusses his contributions to mammography and the diagnostic challenges inherent in breast cancer detection. At the end of the interview, Schneider reflects on his career and how he has contributed to the mission of the FDA while working to ensure that that medical industry was making products that were held to the highest standards of safety.

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews L. Mario Amzel, Director of the Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry at Johns Hopkins. Amzel recounts his childhood in Argentina and discusses his developing interests in physics and thermodynamics as an undergraduate. He describes his graduate work in crystallography and liquid crystal displays under the direction of Leo Becka. Amzel describes the tumultuous political situation in Argentina and the impact these events had on his academic career, including his decision in 1967 to leave the country and continue his studies in Venezuela. He describes the circumstances leading to his decision to come to John Hopkins in 1969. Amzel describes the range of research projects he has worked on over the past fifty years, including his work on immunoglobulin and monoclonal antibodies, mitochondrial ATPase, leukotriene synthesis, and voltage-gated sodium channels. He explains the relevance of his work on various clinical and pharmacological therapies. Amzel emphasizes the importance and relevance of physics first principles in all of his work, and in particular statistical thermodynamics. He reflects on how his work sits at the nexus of physics, chemistry, and biology. At the end of the interview, Amzel describes the evolution of biophysics over the course of his career. 

Career at the University of Rochester, 1934-1940, 1946, with emphasis on the Rochester cyclotron. The cyclotron's funding is covered in particular detail, with the aid of documents from the E. O. Lawrence Papers (Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA). Comments on the Rochester Physics Department and its relations with other institutions, and on biophysical and medical research. Also prominently mentioned are: Hans Albrecht Bethe, Stafford Warren, H. Russell Wilkins; Bell Telephone Laboratories, National Research Council (U.S.) Committee on Mytogenic Radiation, University of California at Berkeley, School of Medicine and Dentistry of University of Rochester, and Washington University.