Nuclear medicine pioneer Hal O. Anger, BS, DSc, died October 31 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. Recognized as a quiet genius who shaped the future of nuclear medicine, Anger's contributions include instruments that allow physicians to see inside the human body in a way that is fundamentally different from x-ray technology. His gamma camera, developed in the 1950s, produces an image of the metabolic processes that take place within organs and cells, capturing the disease process in action rather than depicting the anatomical changes that accompany a disease. Anger's inventions brought the diagnostic techniques made possible by the tracer principle into widespread use, and his instruments are still in common use today, diagnosing cancer, metabolic disorders, and heart disease.

Read more about the life and career of the Hal O. Anger on the website of the Society of Nuclear Medicine at http://interactive.snm.org/index.cfm?PageID=4577&RPID=922.

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