Jeff Fitzsimmons, a professor of radiology at the University of Florida, invented a way to use RF antennas to capture detailed signals from body parts that are undergoing an MRI.   A native of Newark, New Jersey, Jeff moved to Florida as a kid, where his dad worked at the (future) Cape Canaveral in the early 1960’s. “One of my biggest thrills,” he says, “was going out to the range with my dad to see a missile fired.” His dad was also a radio amateur, which introduced Jeff to the concept of antennas at a very early age. This came in handy when Jeff was a Navy communications specialist during the Vietnam era and at the National Security Agency. Later in life he formed a successful company that was bought by Philips Electronics. *This episode was originally released on February 20, 2019.*

 

TRANSCRIPT:

 

Intro: 0:01

Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade a podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade , who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We'll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them. We'll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work, and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Richard Miles: 0:20

Our guest today on Radio Cade is Jeff Fitzsimmons: an inventor with a magnetic personality. And I mean that both literally and seriously, as the saying goes. Jeff is a Professor of Radiology at the University of Florida who invented radio frequency coil arrays for high field MRIs. Welcome to the show, Jeff. And did I get that description right?

Jeff Fitzsimmons: 0:20

Yes, you did.

Richard Miles: 0:20

So I got it right, only because I read it off a sheet of paper but, I need you to explain, briefly and in layman's term, exactly what an RF coiler array for MRI means and what it does.

Jeff Fitzsimmons: 0:39

Sure. So the best way to think about this is if you've ever seen a television antenna or you've ever seen a radio tower or you've seen a cell tower or any of those devices, those are all radio frequency antennas. The cell phone that you carry around with you has a very tiny radio frequency antenna built in. In fact, it has, it has a number of them built in. And of course in the old days, your television set used to have a radio frequency antenna on the roof. So, the antennas that we designed and built, and the reason they were unique, is that they were designed to pick up signals from parts of your body and so they focused on your shoulder or your hand or wrist or your knee or your foot or your brain or your heart, things like that. So these are custom designed radio-frequency coil arrays that are essentially antenna arrays that are conformed to a particular body part. So, they maximize the signal from that part and give you the best possible image.

Richard Miles: 1:35

Okay, great explanation. I think I get it. So these are obviously used in a wide array of applications in hospital settings. Right. So basically anytime you go into an MRI, depending on what hurts or what ain't working, there'll be some sort of coil array that will be looking for signals from that part of the body...is that about right? (Jeff: Yes, that's right.) Okay. All right. So like many inventors, you started out in academia, and then you made the transition through the commercialization of your research and that is a story that is not always successful. In fact, I'm guessing by the numbers, this fails more often than it succeeds. Can you describe a little bit about what led you to that path? I guess what led you to the decision first fall that you had a technology that you thought had market potential