Abstract
It is my privilege and pleasure to introduce the 13th recipient of the D'Arsonval Medal, Dr. Frank S. Prato (Fig. 1). The D'Arsonval Medal is the highest honor bestowed by the Bioelectromagnetics Society (BEMS) and is the Society's highest award for extraordinary accomplishments in the field of bioelectromagnetics. I was honored to present the award to Dr. Prato in Thessaloniki, Greece, in June 2013 Dr. Prato is well known for his remarkable scientific and technical contributions in the field of the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in sophisticated medical intervention procedures based on assessment of permanent heart muscle damage resulting from a heart attack. Dr. Prato has also extended his discovery to the behavior of opioid receptors in the presence of extremely low frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF) and his goal is to use these techniques he has discovered to develop image-guided therapy for treatment of heart disease and pain. There is hope that this work may decrease reliance on heart transplants for treatment of intractable heart failure with the enormous benefits of less intervention and no compromise of the patient's immune system. Dr. Prato is currently imaging program leader and assistant scientific director at the Lawson Health Research Institute as well as chief medical physicist at St Joseph's Hospital. When he first entered university, he worked in a nuclear physics laboratory as a summer student and although accepted into the medical course, decided to complete his master's degree in nuclear physics. In 1981, Dr. Prato convinced St. Joseph's Hospital to purchase the first MRI imaging machine in Canada and even the earliest work was so profoundly informative that it took a while for both physicists and clinicians to gain confidence in believing the findings. Dr. Prato's MRI work is already having an impact on treatment of cardiac disease and this alone is well deserving of his D'Arsonval award. However, the paper he presents now outlines and summarizes another path of inquiry in work dating back over three decades. Dr. Prato's distinguished career in bioelectromagnetics has not only paralleled and contributed to the use of MRI at the highest and most sophisticated level, but in the course of this work his interest has included new observations about effects of ELF-MF in pain modulation. Treatment of chronic pain remains an incomplete science still largely reliant on empirical techniques and the inevitable use of dangerous and addictive drugs as a blunt and uncertain means of modulating nociceptive responses. The possibility of intervening at a neuro-cellular level introduces enticing clinical opportunities for precise, adjustable and reversible intervention in patients with chronic pain. In February 2012, Dr. Prato was instrumental in arranging for Canada's first whole body MRI and positron emission tomography (PET) for research use at the Lawson Institute and clinical use at St. Joseph's Hospital. This machine is now being used by researchers improving accuracy of diagnosis and efficacy of treatment in heart disease, neurological disease and cancer. Dr. Prato's research was not always facilitated by commercially available equipment. In 1990, Dr. Prato and his graduate students designed and built a 1-m cubed exposure system of three Helmholtz-like orthogonal coils capable of producing virtually any desired field exposure within the static and ELF range. There was later collaboration with similar research in Russia. The group now based within the Lawson Health Research Institute and affiliated with the University of Western Ontario includes Drs. Prato, Thomas, Carson, Stodilka, and Le Grosse holding professorships within the Department of Biophysics actively working with M.S. and Ph.D. candidates. They are actively engaged in researching the biological effects of ELF-MF, both pulsed and sinusoidal in the μT to mT range. Dr. Prato's D'Arsonval award adds to many distinguished achievements in his career. He is a past president of the Bioelectromagnetics Society. Frank received his M.S. in nuclear physics in 1971 and his Ph.D. in medical biophysics in 1996 from the University of Toronto. It was his laboratory that produced the first MRI image of a brain in Canada and he has published over 120 peer reviewed papers, 350 abstract presentations and 100 invited presentations. Some 50 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows owe their training to Dr. Prato; many of them are now active in the Society. The Bioelectromagnetics Society is proud to congratulate Dr. Frank S. Prato on not only the achievement of this, the Society's most prestigious award, but on the achievements of his whole career. David R. Black, MD Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
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