A medical breakthrough is a discovery that has major significance in diagnosing, treating or preventing disease. Such discoveries can also lead to new tools, surgical techniques and therapies that greatly improve patient care. Medical breakthroughs usually result from necessity (a problem that must be solved), opportunity, luck, chance, curiosity or ingenuity. They may be the outcome of one discovery spurring another, like the discovery of a vaccine against deadly diphtheria or the harnessing of penicillin for treating serious bacterial infections.

Breakthroughs in academic medicine are improving scientific understanding and enhancing patients’ lives. These advances range from a first face transplant and eye transplant to a device that can help stroke victims speak again.

Stony Brook researchers have made a number of life-saving and transformative medical innovations. From a breakthrough insulin treatment that has saved millions of lives to the development of 3D printing technology, their work is changing healthcare for the better.

Stony Brook innovators such as chemist Paul Lauterbur develop magnetic resonance imaging, a breakthrough that uses nuclear magnetic resonance data to create multi-dimensional images inside the body, including soft tissues and organs. Lauterbur’s invention has revolutionized medicine, allowing physicians to diagnose conditions like cysts, tumors and brain damage. He and his team of scientists later patented the technology that became known as the MRI scanner.