Robley Evans and what physics can do for medicine

When asked, in 1936 by J. Howard Means, Chief of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, whether radioiodine could be produced for thyroid studies, Karl T. Compton, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, referred the question to Robley Evans of the physics department. In response, Evans formed a team from the fields of physics and medicine that produced 128I for animal studies and, subsequently on a cyclotron dedicated to medical purposes, 130I for human uptake measurements and the treatment of hyperthyroidism. Much of what we have learned about iodine kinetics and the radioiodine therapy of Graves's disease stems from these early seminal reports. The cooperation between physicists and physicians that made their accomplishments possible stands as a model example for interdisciplinary collaboration.