Finding a Place of His Own

In 1949, Britton Chance became the Director of the Eldridge Reeves Johnson Research Foundation, devoted to biomedical physics, at the University of Pennsylvania. At the Johnson Foundation, Chance elaborated upon his earlier work with enzymes and expanded his research to cells, tissues, and eventually humans. He continued to innovate new technologies for the advancement of the biomedical sciences. In the late 1970s he became a pioneer in the use of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) for the study of the human brain and limbs. He then shifted his focus and developed an optical method using non-invasive near infrared (NIR) technology. NIR had numerous applications including locating tumors and cancerous tissues, non-invasively observing brain injuries, identifying internal bleeding, and observing muscle activity. In the early 2000s, Chance employed this method to study how the brain solves problems and, after September 11, 2001, he further applied it in an attempt to understand "the nature of the deceitful, malevolent mind."

Click on the images below to learn more about Chance's technological innovation.