Dr. Richard J. Bing, a cardiologist whose work using radiotracers and blood flow in the 1960s laid the foundations for PET technology, died last Monday, the New York Times reports. He was 101.

Widely considered a "Renaissance man," Bing, whose family was Jewish, fled Nazi Germany for the United States where his pioneering research explored cardiac metabolism and congenital heart disease.

In the 1960s, Bing's work with George W. Clark, a physicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, using computers from the Ford Motor Company, helped lay the foundations for modern PET scans.
Bing also helped found the first cardiac catheterization laboratory dedicated to the subject at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and with Helen Brooke Taussig identified Taussig-Bing syndrome, a rare congenital heart deformity.

Bing, who wrote more than 500 scientific articles, continued working well into his 90s, when he discovered a technique for measuring cardiac blood flow using nitric oxide, the Times said.

Originally trained as a musician at the Nuremburg Gymnasium, Bing also wrote more than 300 musical compositions, as well as five works of fiction.

To celebrate his 100th birthday, Microsoft commissioned "Para Fuera," a short film to document his life, after he wrote the software giant a cheeky letter about sharing a name with the company's new search engine, Bing.

To view the video, go here: http://sundance.bside.com/2010/films/parafuera_sundance2010

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