Alan Davison, MIT professor and nuclear cardiology pioneer, dies at 79

Alan Davison, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor emeritus of chemistry and fellow of the Royal Society, died on Nov. 14 after a long illness. He was 79 years old.

Davison made significant contributions in the fields of chemistry and nuclear cardiology. He is known in particular for developing, along with Harvard Medical School’s Alun G. Jones, Cardiolite, the first technetium-based myocardial perfusion-imaging agent.

Davison attended Swansea University in Wales for his undergraduate studies and then earned his PhD in 1962 from Imperial College London under the tutelage of Nobel Laureate Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson. He then worked at Harvard University for two years before joining MIT in 1964 as an assistant professor.

Davison received numerous awards over the years, including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, Paul C. Aebersold Award for Outstanding Achievement in Basic Science Applied to Nuclear Medicine, Ernest H. Swift Lectureship at Caltech, American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention, Carothers Award for “outstanding contributions and advances in industrial applications of chemistry,” Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine, and the Society of Nuclear Medicine's Georg Charles de Hevesy Nuclear Pioneer Award.

Additional information about Davison’s scientific achievements can be found at the Royal Society’s website.

Davison is survived by his wife, five children, 16 grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, donations are being accepted by the Alan Davison Fellowship Fund in Davison’s memory.