Biochemist who used magnetic resonance spectroscopy to show the state of muscles and organs
Magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI scanning, is a diagnostic technique that is now familiar to almost anyone who has had a bad back, a damaged knee or a suspected stroke. During the 1970s and 80s the Oxford biochemist Sir George Radda, who has died aged 88, worked with the same underlying physics to generate not an image, but a spectrum that revealed the biochemical state of the muscles and organs. For the first time it was possible to diagnose metabolic diseases without invasive tissue sampling. An ambitious and hard-working scientist, in 1996 Radda went on to head the UK's Medical Research Council (MRC). Among the projects he helped to drive through in this role was UK Biobank, a database of 500,000 volunteers who have contributed genetic information, medical histories and questionnaires on subjects such as diet and mental health. Biobank has proved an invaluable source of data for researchers investigating the connections between genetics, lifestyle and disease. MRI and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) capitalise on the fact that the nuclei of atoms in materials, including living tissue, are magnetic and line up if placed in a magnetic field. A jolt of radio waves will knock them briefly out of alignment, and as they come back to rest the atoms emit a spectrum of characteristic signals. In the early 70s, leading a group in Oxford University's biochemistry department, Radda collaborated with Rex Richards, a chemistry professor, to study enzymes in solution. Richards had raised funds to commission Oxford Instruments (OI) to develop a superconducting magnet for MRS studies of solutions in test tubes. In 1974, young researchers from the joint MRS group made the astonishing discovery that you could get a spectrum from a whole rat muscle, not just from a suspension of dissociated cells. It raised the question of whether you might get a spectrum from a living animal, or part of a human body. Radda obtained the considerable funds needed for OI to design and…