October 2016
Dieter R. Enzmann was born in 1945 in West Germany. He obtained a bachelor's degree with honours from the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and a medical degree from Stanford University in 1972. He started a residency in diagnostic radiology at Stanford University Medical Center in 1972, which he completed in combination with a fellowship in neuroradiology at the University of California, San Francisco, in 1977.
After his residency, Prof. Enzmann started at Stanford University Medical School as Assistant Professor of radiology specialising in neuroradiology. In 1983 he was promoted to Associate Professor and to full Professor in 1990. He was Director of MRI at the Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine as well as section chief of neuroradiology in the department. He took two sabbatical years in 1984-85 and 1992-93, during which he attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 1996 he became Professor and Chairman of the Department of Radiology at Northwestern University Medical School and Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
In January 2001, he assumed the Leo G. Rigler Chair position at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has been responsible for the academic and clinical radiology programmes at the UCLA School of Medicine and at affiliated hospitals since then.
Prof. Enzmann's major interests and research contributions are in the areas of CNS infections, particularly bacterial infections, and cerebro-spinal fluid (CSF) physiology and its relationship to brain motion and cerebral blood flow. His early interest in CNS infections is reflected in his first book entitled 'Imaging of Infections and Inflammations of the Central Nervous System: Computed Tomography, Ultrasound and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.' Prof. Enzmann contributed to the basic understanding of imaging cerebral abscesses by relating key imaging features of brain abscesses to histopathology, and more generally by emphasising the interplay between the microorganism and the host response, especially in an immunosuppressed context. He was one of the early investigators to exploit flow-sensitive MR scanning techniques. These techniques help to qualitatively and quantitatively understand CSF flow dynamics to blood flow and its association with brain and spinal cord motion.
A Mellon Foundation Fellow for four years, Prof. Enzmann received the American Society of Neuroradiology's Cornelius G. Dyke Award for outstanding research and was awarded two National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants for central nervous system (CNS) research projects, 'Experimental Brain Abscess and CSF Flow' and 'Pathogenesis of Chiari l Syringomyelia'.
He has published numerous papers, scores of chapters and two books. His third book, 'Surviving in Health Care', received the American College of Physician Executive's Robert A. Henry Literary Achievement Award for its contribution to medical management.
A big fan of aquatic sports, Prof. Enzmann also enjoys reading and colour photography in his free time. He is married to Diana and has three daughters, Lyssa, Brittany and Brisa.
In recognition of his outstanding achievements and pioneering work in neuroradiology, Professor Dieter R. Enzmann will present the Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen Honorary Lecture 'Navigating towards systems radiology' at ECR 2009.
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